THE  VERTICAL  CITY 
V 


BOOKS  BY 
FANNIE    HURST 

THE  VERTICAL  CITY 

STAR  DUST 

HUMORESQUE 

HUMORESQUE:  Photoplay  Edition 

GASLIGHT  SONATAS 

EVERY  SOUL  HATH  ITS  SONG 

JUST  AROUND  THE  CORNER 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK 

ESTABLISHED    1817 


THE 
VERTICAL  CITY 


By 
FANNIE    HURST 

Author  of 

"GASLIGHT  SONATAS" 

"HUMORESQUE" 

ETC. 


HARPER  6r  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


THB  VERTICAL  CITY 


Copyright,  1922,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

B-W 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

SHE  WALKS  IN  BEAUTY i 

BACK  PAY 57 

THE  VERTICAL  CITY 107 

THE  SMUDGE 143 

GUILTY 179 

ROULETTE 219 


525  6, IS 


SHE    WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 


SHE  WALKS  IN  BEAUTY 

BY  that  same  architectural  gesture  of  grief  which 
caused  Jehan  at  Agra  to  erect  the  Taj  Mahal 
in  memory  of  a  dead  wife  and  a  cold  hearthstone, 
so  the  Bon  Ton  hotel,  even  to  the  pillars  with 
red-freckled  monoliths  and  peacock-backed  lobby 
chairs,  making  the  analogy  rather  absurdly  com 
plete,  reared  its  fourteen  stories  of  "elegantly  fur 
nished  suites,  all  the  comforts  and  none  of  the  dis 
comforts  of  home." 

A  mausoleum  to  the  hearth.  And  as  true  to  form 
as  any  that  ever  mourned  the  dynastic  bones  of  an 
Augustus  or  a  Hadrian. 

An  Indiana-limestone  and  Vermont-marble  tomb 
to  Hestia. 

All  ye  who  enter  here,  at  sixty  dollars  a  week  and 
up,  leave  behind  the  lingo  of  the  fireside  chair,  pars 
ley  bed,  servant  problem,  cretonne  shoe  bags,  hose 
nozzle,  striped  awnings,  attic  trunks,  bird  houses, 
ice-cream  salt,  spare-room  matting,  bungalow  aprons, 
mayonnaise  receipt,  fruit  jars,  spring  painting, 
summer  covers,  fall  cleaning,  winter  apples. 

The  mosaic  tablet  of  the  family  hotel  is  nailed  to, 

3 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

the  room  side  of  each  door  and  its  commandments 
read  something  like  this: 

One  ring:    Bell  Boy. 

Two  rings:    Chambermaid. 

Three  rings:    Valet. 

Under  no  conditions  are  guests  permitted  to  use  electric  irons 
in  rooms. 

Cooking  in  rooms  not  permitted. 

No  dogs  allowed. 

Management  not  responsible  for  loss  or  theft  of  jewels.  Same 
can  be  deposited  for  safe-keeping  in  the  safe  at  office. 


Note: 

Our  famous  two-dollar  Table  d'Hote  dinner  is  served  in  the 
Red  Dining  Room  from  six-thirty  to  eight.  Music. 

It  is  doubtful  if  in  all  its  hothouse  garden  of  women 
the  Hotel  Bon  Ton  boasted  a  broken  finger  nail  or 
that  little  brash  place  along  the  forefinger  that 
tattles  so  of  potato  peeling  or  asparagus  scraping. 

The  fourteenth -story  manicure,  steam  bath,  and 
beauty  parlors  saw  to  all  that.  In  spite  of  long 
bridge  table,  lobby  divan,  and  table-d'hote  seances, 
''tea"  where  the  coffee  was  served  with  whipped 
cream  and  the  tarts  built  in  four  tiers  and  mortared 
in  mocha  filling,  the  Bon  Ton  hotel  was  scarcely 
more  than  an  average  of  fourteen  pounds  overweight. 

Forty's  silhouette,  except  for  that  cruel  and  irre 
futable  place  where  the  throat  will  wattle,  was  almost 
interchangeable  with  eighteen's.  Indeed,  Bon  Ton 
grandmothers  with  backs  and  French  heels  that 
were  twenty  years  younger  than  their  throats  and 
bunions,  vied  with  twenty's  profile. 

Whistler's  kind  of  mother,  full  of  sweet  years  that 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

were  richer  because  she  had  dwelt  in  them,  but 
whose  eyelids  were  a  little  weary,  had  no  place  there. 

Mrs.  Gronauer,  who  occupied  an  outside,  south 
ern-exposure  suite  of  five  rooms  and  three  baths, 
jazzed  on  the  same  cabaret  floor  with  her  grand 
daughters. 

Many  the  Bon  Ton  afternoon  devoted  entirely  to 
the  possible  lack  of  length  of  the  new  season's  skirts 
or  the  intricacies  of  the  new  filet -lace  patterns. 

Fads  for  the  latest  personal  accoutrements  gripped 
the  Bon  Ton  in  seasonal  epidemics. 

The  permanent  wave  swept  it  like  a  tidal  one. 

In  one  winter  of  afternoons  enough  colored-silk 
sweaters  were  knitted  in  the  lobby  alone  to  supply 
an  orphan  asylum,  but  didn't. 

The  beaded  bag,  cunningly  contrived,  needleful  by 
needleful,  from  little  strands  of  colored-glass  caviar, 
glittered  its  hour. 

Filet  lace  came  then,  sheerly,  whole  yokes  of  it 
for  crepe-de-Chine  nightgowns  and  dainty  scalloped 
edges  for  camisoles. 

Mrs.  Samstag  made  six  of  the  nightgowns  that 
winter — three  for  herself  and  three  for  her  daughter. 
Peach-blowy  pink  ones  with  lace  yokes  that  were 
scarcely  more  to  the  skin  than  the  print  of  a  wave 
edge  running  up  sand,  and  then  little  frills  of  pink- 
satin  ribbon,  caught  up  here  and  there  with  the 
most  delightful  and  unconvincing  little  blue-satin 
rosebuds. 

It  was  bad  for  her  neuralgic  eye,  the  meanderings 
of  the  filet  pattern,  but  she  liked  the  delicate  threadi- 
ness  of  the  handiwork,  and  Mr.  Latz  liked  watching 
her. 

5 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

There  you  have  it!  Straight  through  the  lacy 
mesh  of  the  filet  to  the  heart  interest. 

Mr.  Louis  Latz,  who  was  too  short,  slightly  too 
stout,  and  too  shy  of  likely  length  of  swimming  arm 
ever  to  have  figured  in  any  woman's  inevitable 
visualization  of  her  ultimate  Leander,  liked,  fas 
cinatedly,  to  watch  Mrs.  Samstag's  nicely  manicured 
fingers  at  work.  He  liked  them  passive,  too.  Best 
of  all,  he  would  have  preferred  to  feel  them  between 
his  own,  but  that  had  never  been. 

Nevertheless,  that  desire  was  capable  of  catching 
him  unawares.  That  very  morning  as  he  had  stood, 
in  his  sumptuous  bachelor's  apartment,  strumming 
on  one  of  the  windows  that  overlooked  an  expansive 
tree-and-lake  vista  of  Central  Park,  he  had  wanted 
very  suddenly  and  very  badly  to  feel  those  fingers 
in  his  and  to  kiss  down  on  them. 

Even  in  his  busy  broker's  office,  this  desire  could 
cut  him  like  a  swift  lance. 

He  liked  their  taper  and  their  rosy  pointedness, 
those  fingers,  and  the  dry,  neat  way  they  had  of 
stepping  in  between  the  threads. 

Mr.  Latz's  nails  were  manicured,  top,  not  quite 
so  pointedly,  but  just  as  correctly  as  Mrs.  Sams- 
tag's.  But  his  fingers  were  stubby  and  short.  Some 
times  he  pulled  at  them  until  they  cracked. 

Secretly  he  yearned  for  length  of  limb,  of  torso, 
even  of  finger. 

On  this,  one  of  a  hundred  such  typical  evenings  in 
the  Bon  Ton  lobby,  Mr.  Latz,  sighing  out  a  satis 
faction  of  his  inner  man,  sat  himself  down  on  a 
red- velvet  chair  opposite  Mrs.  Samstag.  His  knees, 
widespread,  taxed  his  knife-pressed  gray  trousers 

6 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

to  their  very  last  capacity,  but  he  sat  back  in  none 
the  less  evident  comfort,  building  his  fingers  up  into 
a  little  chapel. 

"Well,  how's  Mr.  Latz  this  evening?"  asked  Mrs. 
Samstag,  her  smile  encompassing  the  question. 

"If  I  was  any  better  I  couldn't  stand  it,"  relishing 
her  smile  and  his  reply. 

The  Bon  Ton  had  just  dined,  too  well,  from  fruit 
flip  a  la  Bon  Ton,  mulligatawny  soup,  filet  of  sole 
saute,  choice  of  or  both  poulette  emince  and  spring 
lamb  grignon,  and  on  through  to  fresh  strawberry 
ice  cream  in  fluted  paper  boxes,  petits  fours,  and 
demi-tasse.  Groups  of  carefully  corseted  women 
stood  now  beside  the  invitational  plush  divans  and 
peacock  chairs,  paying  twenty  minutes'  after-dinner 
standing  penance.  Men  with  Wall  Street  eyes  and 
blood  pressure  slid  surreptituous  celluloid  tooth 
picks  and  gathered  around  the  cigar  stand.  Orches 
tra  music  flickered.  Young  girls,  the  traditions  of 
demure  sixteen  hanging  by  one-inch  shoulder  straps, 
and  who  could  not  walk  across  a  hardwood  floor 
without  sliding  the  last  three  steps,  teetered  in  bare 
arm-in-arm  groups,  swapping  persiflage  with  pimply, 
patent-leather-haired  young  men  who  were  full  of 
nervous  excitement  and  eager  to  excel  in  return 
badinage. 

Bell  hops  scurried  with  folding  tables.  Bridge 
games  formed. 

The  theater  group  got  off,  so  to  speak.  Showy 
women  and  show-off  men.  Mrs.  Gronauer,  in  a  full- 
length  mink  coat  that  enveloped  her  like  a  squaw, 
a  titillation  of  diamond  aigrettes  in  her  Titianed 
hair,  and  an  aftermath  of  scent  as  tangible  as  the 

7 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

trail  of  a  wounded  shark,  emerged  from  the  elevator 
with  her  son  and  daughter-in-law. 

"Foi!"  said  Mr.  Latz,  by  way  of  somewhat 
unduly,  perhaps,  expressing  his  own  kind  of  cog 
nizance  of  the  scented  trail. 

"Fleur  de  printemps,"  said  Mrs.  Samstag,  in 
quick  olfactory  analysis.  ''Eight-ninety-eight  an 
ounce."  Her  nose  crawling  up  to  what  he  thought 
the  cunning  perfection  of  a  sniff. 

1 '  Used  to  it  from  home — not  ?  She  is  not.  Believe 
me,  I  knew  Max  Gronauer  when  he  first  started  in 
the  produce  business  in  Jersey  City  and  the  only 
perfume  he  had  was  at  seventeen  cents  a  pound  and 
not  always  fresh  killed  at  that.  Cold  storage  de 
printemps!" 

"Max  Gronauer  died  just  two  months  after  my 
husband,"  said  Mrs.  Samstag,  tucking  away  into  her 
beaded  handbag  her  filet-lace  handkerchief,  itself 
guilty  of  a  not  inexpensive  attar. 

"Thu-thu!"  clucked  Mr.  Latz  for  want  of  a 
fitting  retort. 

"Heigh-ho!  I  always  say  we  have  so  little  in 
common,  me  and  Mrs.  Gronauer,  she  revokes  so  in 
bridge,  and  I  think  it's  terrible  for  a  grandmother 
to  blondine  so  red,  but  we've  both  been  widows  for 
almost  eight  years.  Eight  years,"  repeated  Mrs. 
Samstag  on  a  small,  scented  sigh. 

He  was  inordinately  sensitive  to  these  allusions, 
reddening  and  wanting  to  seem  appropriate. 

"Poor  little  woman,  you've  had  your  share  of 
trouble." 

"Share,"  she  repeated,  swallowing  a  gulp  and 
pressing  the  line  of  her  eyebrows  as  if  her  thoughts 

3 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

were  sobbing.  "I —  It's  as  I  tell  Alma,  Mr.  Latz, 
sometimes  I  think  I've  had  three  times  my  share. 
My  one  consolation  is  that  I  try  to  make  the  best 
of  it.  That's  my  motto  in  life,  '  Keep  a  bold  front.' " 

For  the  life  of  him,  all  he  could  find  to  convey  to 
her  the  bleeding  quality  of  his  sympathy  was,  "Poor, 
poor  little  woman!" 

"Heigh-ho!"  she  said,  and  again,  "Heigh-ho!" 

There  was  quite  a  nape  to  her  neck.  He  could  see 
it  where  the  carefully  trimmed  brown  hair  left  it 
for  a  rise  to  skillful  coiffure,  and  what  threatened  to 
be  a  slight  depth  of  flesh  across  the  shoulders  had 
been  carefully  massaged  of  this  tendency,  fifteen 
minutes  each  night  and  morning,  by  her  daughter. 

In  fact,  through  the  black  transparency  of  her 
waist  Mr.  Latz  thought  her  plumply  adorable. 

It  was  about  the  eyes  that  Mrs.  Samstag  showed 
most  plainly  whatever  inroads  into  her  clay  the 
years  might  have  gained.  There  were  little  dark 
areas  beneath  them  like  smeared  charcoal,  and  two 
unrelenting  sacs  that  threatened  to  become  pouchy. 

Their  effect  was  not  so  much  one  of  years,  but 
they  gave  Mrs.  Samstag,  in  spite  of  the  only  slightly 
plump  and  really  passable  figure,  the  look  of  one  out 
of  health.  Women  of  her  kind  of  sallowness  can  be 
found  daily  in  fashionable  physicians'  outer  offices, 
awaiting  X-ray  appointments. 

What  ailed  Mrs.  Samstag  was  hardly  organic. 
She  was  the  victim  of  periodic  and  raging  neuralgic 
fires  that  could  sweep  the  right  side  of  her  head 
and  down  into  her  shoulder  blade  with  a  great  crack 
ling  and  blazing  of  nerves.  It  was  not  unusual  for 
her  daughter  Alma  to  sit  up  the  one  or  two  nights 

9 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

that  it  could  endure,  unfailing  through  the  wee  hours 
in  her  chain  of  hot  applications. 

For  a  week,  sometimes,  these  attacks  heralded 
their  comings  with  little  jabs,  like  the  pricks  of  an 
exploring  needle.  Then  the  under-eyes  began  to 
look  their  muddiest.  They  were  darkening  now  and 
she  put  up  two  fingers  with  a  little  pressing  move 
ment  to  her  temple. 

"You're  a  great  little  woman,"  reiterated  Mr.  Latz, 
rather  riveting  even  Mrs.  Samstag's  suspicion  that 
here  was  no  great  stickler  for  variety  of  expression. 

"I  try  to  be,"  she  said,  his  tone  inviting  out  in 
her  a  mood  of  sweet  forbearance. 

"And  a  great  sufferer,  too,"  he  said,  noting  the 
pressing  fingers. 

She  colored  under  this  delightful  impeachment. 

"I  wouldn't  wish  one  of  my  neuralgia  spells  to  my 
worst  enemy,  Mr.  Latz." 

"If  you  were  mine — I  mean — if — the — say — was 
mine — I  wouldn't  stop  until  I  had  you  to  every 
specialist  in  Europe.  I  know  a  thing  or  two  about 
those  fellows  over  there.  Some  of  them  are 
wonders." 

Mrs.  Samstag  looked  off,  her  profile  inclined  to 
lift  and  fall  as  if  by  little  pulleys  of  emotion. 

"That's  easier  said  than  done,  Mr.  Latz,  by  a — 
a  widow  who  wants  to  do  right  by  her  grown  daugh 
ter  and  living  so — high  since  the  war." 

"I — I — "  said  Mr.  Latz,  leaping  impulsively  for 
ward  on  the  chair  that  was  as  tightly  upholstered 
in  effect  as  he  in  his  modish  suit,  then  clutching 
himself  there  as  if  he  had  caught  the  impulse  on  the 
fly,  "I  just  wish  I  could  help." 

10 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

"Oh!"  she  said,  and  threw  up  a  swift  brown  look 
from  the  lace  making  and  then  at  it  again. 

He  laughed,  but  from  nervousness. 

"My  little  mother  was  an  ailer,  too.'* 

"That's  me,  Mr.  Latz.  Not  sick — just  ailing.  I 
always  say  that  it's  ridiculous  that  a  woman  in  such 
perfect  health  as  I  am  should  be  such  a  sufferer." 

"Same  with  her  and  her  joints." 

"Why,  except  for  this  old  neuralgia,  I  can  outdo 
Alma  when  it  comes  to  dancing  down  in  the  grill 
with  the  young  people  of  an  evening,  or  shop 
ping." 

"More  like  sisters  than  any  mother  and  daughter 
I  ever  saw." 

"Mother  and  daughter,  but  which  is  which  from 
the  back,  some  of  my  friends  put  it,"  said  Mrs. 
Samstag,  not  without  a  curve  to  her  voice;  then, 
hastily:  "But  the  best  child,  Mr.  Latz.  The  best 
that  ever  lived.  A  regular  little  mother  to  me  in 
my  spells." 

"Nice  girl,  Alma." 

"It  snowed  so  the  day  of — my  husband's  funeral. 
Why,  do  you  know  that  up  to  then  I  never  had  an 
attack  of  neuralgia  in  my  life.  Didn't  even  know 
what  a  headache  was.  That  long  drive.  That 
windy  hilltop  with  two  men  to  keep  me  from  jumping 
into  the  grave  after  him.  Ask  Alma.  That's  how  I 
care  when  I  care.  But,  of  course,  as  the  saying  is, 
'time  heals.'  But  that's  how  I  got  my  first  attack. 
Tntenseness'  is  what  the  doctors  called  it.  I'm 
terribly  intense." 

"I — guess  when  a  woman  like  you — cares  like — 
you — cared,  it's  not  much  use  hoping  you  would 

2  ii 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

ever — care  again.  That's  about  the  way  of  it, 
isn't  it?" 

If  he  had  known  it,  there  was  something  about  his 
intensity  of  expression  to  inspire  mirth.  His 
eyebrows  lifted  to  little  Gothic  arches  of  anxiety, 
a  rash  of  tiny  perspiration  broke  out  over  his  blue 
shaved  face,  and  as  he  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  chair  it 
seemed  that  inevitably  the  tight  sausagelike  knees 
must  push  their  way  through  mere  fabric. 

Ordinarily  he  presented  the  slightly  bay-win 
dowed,  bay-rummed,  spatted,  and  somewhat  jowled 
well-being  of  the  Wall  Street  bachelor  who  is  a 
musical-comedy  first-nighter,  can  dig  the  meat  out 
of  the  lobster  claw  whole,  takes  his  beefsteak  rare 
and  with  two  or  three  condiments,  and  wears  his 
elk's  tooth  dangling  from  his  waistcoat  pocket  and 
mounted  on  a  band  of  platinum  and  tiny  diamonds. 

Mothers  of  debutantes  were  by  no  means  unami- 
ably  disposed  toward  him,  but  the  debutantes 
themselves  slithered  away  like  slim-flanked  minnows. 

It  was  rumored  that  one  summer  at  the  Royal 
Palisades  Hotel  in  Atlantic  City  he  had  become 
engaged  to  a  slim-flanked  one  from  Akron,  Ohio. 
But  on  the  evening  of  the  first  day  she  had  seen 
him  in  a  bathing  suit  the  rebellious  young  girl  and 
a  bitterly  disappointed  and  remonstrating  mother 
had  departed  on  the  Buck  Eye  for  "points  west." 

There  was  almost  something  of  the  nudity  of 
arm  and  leg  he  must  have  presented  to  eighteen 's 
tender  sensibilities  in  Mr.  Latz's  expression  now  as 
he  sat  well  forward  on  the  overstuffed  chair,  his 
overstuffed  knees  strained  apart,  his  face  nude  of  all 
pretense  and  creased  with  anxiety. 

12 


SHE   WALKS    IN   BEAUTY 

"That's  about  the  way  of  it,  isn't  it?"  he  said 
again  into  the  growing  silence. 

Suddenly  Mrs.  Samstag's  fingers  were  rigid  at 
their  task  of  lace  making,  the  scraping  of  the  orches 
tral  violin  tearing  the  roaring  noises  in  her  ears  into 
ribbons  of  alternate  sound  and  vacuum,  as  if  she 
were  closing  her  ears  and  opening  them,  so  roaringly 
the  blood  pounded. 

"I —  When  a  woman  cares  for — a  man  like — I 
did — Mr.  Latz,  she'll  never  be  happy  until — she 
cares  again — like  that.  I  always  say,  once  an  affec 
tionate  nature,  always  an  affectionate  nature." 

"You  mean,"  he  said,  leaning  forward  the  im 
perceptible  half  inch  that  was  left  of  chair — "you 
mean — me — ?" 

The  smell  of  bay  rum  came  out  greenly  then  as 
the  moisture  sprang  out  on  his  scalp. 

"I — I'm  a  home  woman,  Mr.  Latz.  You  can  put 
a  fish  in  water,  but  you  cannot  make  him  swim. 
That's  me  and  hotel  life." 

At  this  somewhat  cryptic  apothegm  Mr.  Latz's 
knee  touched  Mrs.  Samstag's,  so  that  he  sprang 
back  full  of  nerves  at  what  he  had  not  intended. 

"Marry  me,  Carrie,"  he  said,  more  abruptly  than 
he  might  have,  without  the  act  of  that  knee  to  imme 
diately  justify. 

She  spread  the  lace  out  on  her  lap. 

Ostensibly  to  the  hotel  lobby  they  were  as  casual 
as,  "My  mulligatawny  soup  was  cold  to-night,"  or, 
"Have  you  heard  the  new  one  that  Al  Jolson  pulls 
at  the  Winter  Garden?"  But  actually  the  roar  was 
higher  than  ever  in  Mrs.  Samstag's  ears  and  he  could 
feel  the  plethoric  red  rushing  in  flashes  over  his  body. 


SHE   WALKS    IN   BEAUTY 

"Many  me,  Carrie,"  he  said,  as  if  to  prove  that 
his  stiff  lips  could  repeat  their  incredible  feat. 

With  a  woman's  talent  for  them,  her  tears 
sprang. 

"Mr.  Latz— " 

' 'Louis/*  he  interpolated,  widely  eloquent  of 
eyebrow  and  posture. 

"You're  proposing,  Louis!"  She  explained  rather 
than  asked,  and  placed  her  hand  to  her  heart  so 
prettily  that  he  wanted  to  crush  it  there  with  his 
kisses. 

"God  bless  you  for  knowing  it  so  easy,  Carrie. 
A  young  girl  would  make  it  so  hard.  It's  just  what 
has  kept  me  from  asking  you  weeks  ago,  this  getting 
it  said.  Carrie,  will  you?" 

"I'm  a  widow,  Mr.  Latz — Louis — " 

"Loo—" 

"L — loo.  With  a  grown  daughter.  Not  one  of 
those  merry-widows  you  read  about." 

"That's  me!  A  bachelor  on  top,  but  a  home  man 
underneath.  Why,  up  to  five  years  ago,  Carrie, 
while  the  best  little  mother  a  man  ever  had  was 
alive,  I  never  had  eyes  for  a  woman  or — " 

"It's  common  talk  what  a  grand  son  you  were  to 
her,  Mr.  La — Louis — " 

"Loo." 

"Loo." 

"I  don't  want  to  seem  to  brag,  Carrie,  but  you 
saw  the  coat  that  just  walked  out  on  Mrs.  Gronauer? 
My  little  mother  she  was  a  humpback,  Carrie,  not  a 
real  one,  but  all  stooped  from  the  heavy  years 
when  she  was  helping  my  father  to  get  his  start. 
Well,  anyway,  that  little  stooped  back  was  one  of 

14 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

the  reasons  why  I  was  so  anxious  to  make  it  up  to 
her.  Y'understand?" 

"Yes—Loo." 

"But  you  saw  that  mink  coat.  Well,  my  little 
mother,  three  years  before  she  died,  was  wearing 
one  like  that  in  sable.  Real  Russian.  Set  me  back 
eighteen  thousand,  wholesale,  and  she  never  knew 
different  than  that  it  cost  eighteen  hundred.  Proud 
est  moment  of  my  life  when  I  helped  my  little  old 
mother  into  her  own  automobile  in  that  sable  coat. 

"I  had  some  friends  lived  in  the  Grenoble  Apart 
ments  when  you  did — the  Adelbergs.  They  used  to 
tell  me  how  it  hung  right  down  to  her  heels  and  she 
never  got  into  the  auto  that  she  didn't  pick  it  up  so 
as  not  to  sit  on  it. 

"That  there  coat  is  packed  away  in  cold  storage 
now,  Carrie,  waiting,  without  me  exactly  knowing 
why,  I  guess,  for — the  one  little  woman  in  the  world 
besides  her  I  would  let  so  much  as  touch  its  hem." 

Mrs.  Samstag's  lips  parted,  her  teeth  showing 
through  like  light. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "sable!  That's  my  fur,  Loo. 
I've  never  owned  any,  but  ask  Alma  if  I  don't  stop 
to  look  at  it  in  every  show  window.  Sable!" 

"Carrie — would  you — could  you —  I'm  not  what 
you  would  call  a  youngster  in  years,  I  guess,  but 
forty-four  isn't — " 

"I'm — forty-one,  Louis.  A  man  like  you  could 
have  younger." 

"No.  That's  what  I  don't  want.  In  my  lone- 
someness,  after  my  mother's  death,  I  thought  once 
that  maybe  a  young  girl  from  the  West,  nice  girl 
with  her  mother  from  Ohio — but  I — funny  thing, 

15 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

now  I  come  to  think  about  it — I  never  once  men 
tioned  my  little  mother's  sable  coat  to  her.  I 
couldn't  have  satisfied  a  young  girl  like  that,  or  her 
me,  Carrie,  any  more  than  I  could  satisfy  Alma.  It 
was  one  of  those  mamma-made  matches  that  we  got 
into  because  we  couldn't  help  it  and  out  of  it  before 
it  was  too  late.  No,  no,  Carrie,  what  I  want  is  a 
woman  as  near  as  possible  to  my  own  age." 

"Loo,  I — I  couldn't  start  in  with  you  even  with 
the  one  little  lie  that  gives  every  woman  a  right  to 
be  a  liar.  I'm  forty-three,  Louis — nearer  to  forty- 
four.  You're  not  mad,  Loo?" 

' '  God  love  it !  If  that  ain't  a  little  woman  for  you ! 
Mad?  Why,  just  your  doing  that  little  thing  with 
me  raises  your  stock  fifty  per  cent." 

11  I'm— that  way." 

"We're  a  lot  alike,  Carrie.  For  five  years  I've 
been  living  in  this  hotel  because  it's  the  best  I  can 
do  under  the  circumstances.  But  at  heart  I'm  a 
home  man,  Carrie,  and  unless  I'm  pretty  much  off 
my  guess,  you  are,  too — I  mean  a  home  woman. 
Right?" 

' '  Me  all  over,  Loo.    Ask  Alma  if — " 

"I've  got  the  means,  too,  Carrie,  to  give  a  woman 
a  home  to  be  proud  of." 

"Just  for  fun,  ask  Alma,  Loo,  if  one  year  since 
her  father's  death  I  haven't  said,  'Alma,  I  wish  I 
had  the  heart  to  go  back  housekeeping.'" 

"I  knew  it!" 

"But  I  ask  you,  Louis,  what's  been  the  incentive? 
Without  a  man  in  the  house  I  wouldn't  have  the 
same  interest.  That  first  winter  after  my  husband 
died  I  didn't  even  have  the  heart  to  take  the  summer 

16 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

covers  off  the  furniture.  Alma  was  a  child  then, 
too,  so  I  kept  asking  myself,  'For  what  should  I 
take  an  interest?'  You  can  believe  me  or  not,  but 
half  the  time  with  just  me  to  eat  it,  I  wouldn't 
bother  with  more  than  a  cold  snack  for  supper,  and 
everyone  knew  what  a  table  we  used  to  set.  But 
with  no  one  to  come  home  evenings  expecting  a 
hot  meal — " 

' '  You  poor  little  woman !  I  know  how  it  is.  Why, 
if  I  so  much  as  used  to  telephone  that  I  couldn't  get 
home  for  supper,  right  away  I  knew  the  little  mother 
would  turn  out  the  gas  under  what  was  cooking  and 
not  eat  enough  herself  to  keep  a  bird  alive." 

4 'Housekeeping  is  no  life  for  a  woman  alone. 
On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Latz — Louis — Loo,  on  my 
income,  and  with  a  daughter  growing  up,  and 
naturally  anxious  to  give  her  the  best,  it  hasn't  been 
so  easy.  People  think  I'm  a  rich  widow,  and  with 
her  father's  memory  to  consider  and  a  young  lady 
daughter,  naturally  I  let  them  think  it,  but  on  my 
seventy-four  hundred  a  year  it  has  been  hard  to 
keep  up  appearances  in  a  hotel  like  this.  Not  that 
I  think  you  think  I'm  a  rich  widow,  but  just  the 
same,  that's  me  every  time.  Right  out  with  the 
truth  from  the  start." 

"It  shows  you're  a  clever  little  manager  to  be 
able  to  do  it." 

"We  lived  big  and  spent  big  while  my  husband 
lived.  He  was  as  shrewd  a  jobber  in  knit  underwear 
as  the  business  ever  saw,  but — well,  you  know  how 
it  is.  Pneumonia.  I  always  say  he  wore  himself 
out  with  conscientiousness.' 

' '  Maybe  you  don't  believe  it,  Carrie,  but  it  makes 

17 


SHE    WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

me  happy  what  you  just  said  about  money.  It 
means  I  can  give  you  things  you  couldn't  afford  for 
yourself.  I  don't  say  this  for  publication,  Carrie, 
but  in  Wall  Street  alone,  outside  of  my  brokerage 
business,  I  cleared  eighty-six  thousand  last  year. 
I  can  give  you  the  best.  You  deserve  it,  Carrie. 
Will  you  say  yes?" 

"My  daughter,  Loo.  She's  only  eighteen,  but 
she's  my  shadow — I  lean  on  her  so." 

"A  sweet,  dutiful  girl  like  Alma  would  be  the  last 
to  stand  in  her  mother's  light." 

"But  remember,  Louis,  you're  marrying  a  little 
family." 

"That  don't  scare  me." 

"She's  my  only.  We're  different  natured.  Alma's 
a  Samstag  through  and  through.  Quiet,  reserved. 
But  she's  my  all,  Louis.  I  love  my  baby  too  much 
to — to  marry  where  she  wouldn't  be  as  welcome  as 
the  day  itself.  She's  precious  to  me,  Louis." 

"Why,  of  course!  You  wouldn't  be  you  if  she 
wasn't.  You  think  I  would  want  you  to  feel  differ 
ent?" 

"I  mean — Louis — no  matter  where  I  go,  more 
than  with  most  children,  she's  part  of  me,  Loo.  I — 
Why,  that  child  won't  so  much  as  go  to  spend  the 
night  with  a  girl  friend  away  from  me.  Her  quiet 
ways  don't  show  it,  but  Alma  has  character!  You 
wouldn't  believe  it,  Louis,  how  she  takes  care  of 
me." 

"Why,  Carrie,  the  first  thing  we  pick  out  in  our 
new  home  will  be  a  room  for  her." 

"Loo!" 

"Not  that  she  will  want  it  long,  the  way  I  see 

18 


SHE   WALKS    IN   BEAUTY 

that  young  rascal  Friedlander  sits  up  to  her.  A 
better  young  fellow  and  a  better  business  head  you 
couldn't  pick  for  her.  Didn't  that  youngster  go  out 
to  Dayton  the  other  day  and  land  a  contract  for  the 
surgical  fittings  for  a  big  new  clinic  out  there 
before  the  local  firms  even  rubbed  the  sleep  out  of 
their  eyes?  I  have  it  from  good  authority  Fried- 
lander  Clinical  Supply  Company  doubled  their 
excess-profit  tax  last  year." 

A  white  flash  of  something  that  was  almost 
fear  seemed  to  strike  Mrs.  Samstag  into  a  rigid 
pallor. 

"No!  No!  I'm  not  like  most  mothers,  Louis,  for 
marrying  their  daughters  off.  I  want  her  with  me. 
If  marrying  her  off  is  your  idea,  it's  best  you  know 
it  now  in  the  beginning.  I  want  my  little  girl  with 
me — I  have  to  have  my  little  girl  with  me!" 

He  was  so  deeply  moved  that  his  eyes  were 
embarrassingly  moist. 

"Why,  Carrie,  every  time  you  open  your  mouth 
you  only  prove  to  me  further  what  a  grand  little 
woman  you  are!" 

"You'll  like  Alma,  when  you  get  to  know  her, 
Louis." 

"Why,  I  do  now!  Always  have  said  she's  a  sweet 
little  thing." 

"She  is  quiet  and  hard  to  get  acquainted  with  at 
first,  but  that  is  reserve.  She's  not  forward  like  most 
young  girls  nowadays.  She's  the  kind  of  a  child 
that  would  rather  go  upstairs  evenings  with  a  book 
or  her  sewing  than  sit  down  here  in  the  lobby.  That's 
where  she  is  now." 

"Give  me  that  kind  every  time  in  preference  to 

19 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

all  these  gay  young  chickens  that  know  more  they 
oughtn't  to  know  about  life  before  they  start  than 
my  little  mother  did  when  she  finished." 

"But  do  you  think  that  girl  will  go  to  bed  before 
I  come  up  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  She's  been  my  comforter 
and  my  salvation  in  my  troubles.  More  like  the 
mother,  I  sometimes  tell  her,  and  me  the  child.  If 
you  want  me,  Louis,  it's  got  to  be  with  her,  too.  I 
couldn't  give  up  my  baby — not  my  baby." 

"Why,  Carrie,  have  your  baby  to  your  heart's 
content !  She's  got  to  be  a  fine  girl  to  have  you  for  a 
mother,  and  now  it  will  be  my  duty  to  please  her  as 
a  father.  Carrie,  will  you  have  me?" 

"Oh,  Louis— Loo!" 

"Carrie,  my  dear!" 

And  so  it  was  that  Carrie  Samstag  and  Louis  Latz 
came  into  their  betrothal. 


None  the  less,  it  was  with  some  misgivings  and  red 
lights  burning  high  on  her  cheek  bones  that  Mrs. 
Samstag  at  just  after  ten  that  evening  turned  the 
knob  of  the  door  that  entered  into  her  little  sitting 
room. 

The  usual  horrific  hotel  room  of  tight  green-plush 
upholstery,  ornamental  portieres  on  brass  rings  that 
grated,  and  the  equidistant  French  engravings  of 
lavish  scrollwork  and  scroll  frames. 

But  in  this  case  a  room  redeemed  by  an  upright 
piano  with  a  green-silk-and-gold-lace-shaded  floor 
lamp  glowing  by.  Two  gilt-framed  photographs  and 
a  cluster  of  ivory  knickknacks  on  the  white  mantel. 
A  heap  of  handmade  cushions.  Art  editions  of  the 

20 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

gift  poets  and  some  circulating-library  novels.  A 
fireside  chair,  privately  owned  and  drawn  up, 
ironically  enough,  beside  the  gilded  radiator,  its 
headrest  worn  from  kindly  service  to  Mrs.  Sams  tag's 
neuralgic  brow. 

From  the  nest  of  cushions  in  the  circle  of  lamp 
glow  Alma  sprang  up  at  her  mother's  entrance. 
Sure  enough,  she  had  been  reading,  and  her  cheek 
was  a  little  flushed  and  crumpled  from  where  it  had 
been  resting  in  the  palm  of  her  hand. 

"Mamma,"  she  said,  coming  out  of  the  circle  of 
light  and  switching  on  the  ceiling  bulbs,  "you  stayed 
down  so  late." 

There  was  a  slow  prettiness  to  Alma.  It  came 
upon  you  like  a  little  dawn,  palely  at  first  and  then 
pinkening  to  a  pleasant  consciousness  that  her  small 
face  was  heart-shaped  and  clear  as  an  almond,  that 
the  pupils  of  her  gray  eyes  were  deep  and  dark,  like 
cisterns,  and  to  young  Leo  Friedlander  (rather  apt 
the  comparison,  too)  her  mouth  was  exactly  the 
shape  of  a  small  bow  that  had  shot  its  quiverful  of 
arrows  into  his  heart. 

And  instead  of  her  eighteen  she  looked  sixteen, 
there  was  that  kind  of  timid  adolescence  about  her, 
and  yet  when  she  said,  "Mamma,  you  stayed  down 
so  late,"  the  bang  of  a  little  pistol  shot  was  back 
somewhere  in  her  voice. 

"Why— Mr.  Latz— and— I— sat  and  talked." 

An  almost  imperceptible  nerve  was  dancing  against 
Mrs.  Samstag's  right  temple.  Alma  could  sense, 
rather  than  see,  the  ridge  of  pain. 

"You're  all  right,  mamma?" 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Samstag,  and  sat  down  on  a 

21 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

divan,  its  naked  greenness  relieved  by  a  thrown 
scarf  of  black  velvet  stenciled  in  gold. 

"You  shouldn't  have  remained  down  so  long  if 
your  head  is  hurting,"  said  her  daughter,  and  quite 
casually  took  up  her  mother's  beaded  hand  bag 
where  it  had  fallen  in  her  lap,  but  her  fingers  feeling 
lightly  and  furtively  as  if  for  the  shape  of  its  con 
tents. 

"Stop  that,"  said  Mrs.  Samstag,  jerking  it  back, 
a  dull  anger  in  her  voice. 

"Come  to  bed,  mamma.  If  you're  in  for  neu 
ralgia,  I'll  fix  the  electric  pad." 

Suddenly  Mrs.  Samstag  shot  out  her  arm,  rather 
slim-looking  in  the  invariable  long  sleeve  she  affected, 
drawing  Alma  back  toward  her  by  the  ribbon  sash 
of  her  pretty  chiffon  frock. 

"Alma,  be  good  to  mamma  to-night!  Sweetheart 
— be  good  to  her." 

The  quick  suspecting  fear  that  had  motivated 
Miss  Samstag' s  groping  along  the  beaded  hand  bag 
shot  out  again  in  her  manner. 

"Mamma — you  haven't — ?" 

"No,  no!  Don't  nag  me.  It's  something  else, 
Alma.  Something  mamma  is  very  happy  about." 

"Mamma,  you've  broken  your  promise  again." 

"No!  No!  No!  Alma,  I've  been  a  good  mother  to 
you,  haven't  I?" 

"Yes,  mamma,  yes,  but  what — " 

"Whatever  else  I've  been  hasn't  been  my  fault — 
you've  always  blamed  Heyman." 

"Mamma,  I  don't  understand." 

"I've  caused  you  worry,  Alma — terrible  worry. 
I  know  that.  But  everything  is  changed  now. 

22 


SHE    WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

Mamma's  going  to  turn  over  such  a  new  leaf  that 
everything  is  going  to  be  happiness  in  this  family." 

' '  Dearest,  if  you  knew  how  happy  it  makes  me  to 
hear  you  say  that." 

"Alma,  look  at  me." 

"Mamma,  you — you  frighten  me." 

"You  like  Louis  Latz,  don't  you,  Alma?" 

"Why,  yes,  mamma.    Very  much." 

"We  can't  all  be  young  and  handsome  like  Leo, 
can  we?" 

"You  mean— ?" 

"I  mean  that  finer  and  better  men  than  Louis 
Latz  aren't  lying  around  loose.  A  man  who  treated 
his  mother  like  a  queen  and  who  worked  himself  up 
from  selling  newspapers  on  the  street  to  a  million 
aire." 

"Mamma?" 

"Yes,  baby.  He  asked  me  to-night.  Come  to  me, 
Alma;  stay  with  me  close.  He  asked  me  to 
night." 

"What?" 

"You  know.  Haven't  you  seen  it  coming  for 
weeks?  I  have." 

"Seen  what?" 

"Don't  make  mamma  come  out  and  say  it.  For 
eight  years  I've  been  as  grieving  a  widow  to  a  man 
as  a  woman  could  be.  But  I'm  human,  Alma,  and 
he — asked  me  to-night." 

There  was  a  curious  pallor  came  over  Miss  Sam- 
stag's  face,  as  if  smeared  there  by  a  hand. 

"Asked  you  what?" 

"Alma,  it  don't  mean  I'm  not  true  to  your  father 
as  I  was  the  day  I  buried  him  in  that  blizzard  back 

23 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

there,  but  could  you  ask  for  a  finer,  steadier  man 
than  Louis  Latz?    It  looks  out  of  his  face." 

"Mamma,  you —    What — are  you  saying?" 

"Alma?" 

There  lay  a  silence  between  them  that  took  on  the 
roar  of  a  simoon  and  Miss  Samstag  jumped  then 
from  her  mother's  embrace,  her  little  face  stiff  with 
the  clench  of  her  mouth. 

' '  Mamma — you —  No — no !  Oh,  mamma — oh — ! ' ' 

A  quick  spout  of  hysteria  seemed  to  half  strangle 
Mrs.  Samstag  so  that  she  slanted  backward,  holding 
her  throat. 

"I  knew  it.  My  own  child  against  me.  O  God! 
Why  was  I  born?  My  own  child  against  me!" 

"Mamma — you  can't  marry  him.  You  can't 
marry — anybody. ' ' 

"Why  can't  I  marry  anybody?  Must  I  be  afraid 
to  tell  my  own  child  when  a  good  man  wants  to 
marry  me  and  give  us  both  a  good  home?  That's 
my  thanks  for  making  my  child  my  first  considera 
tion — before  I  accepted  him." 

"Mamma,  you  didn't  accept  him.  Darling,  you 
wouldn't  do  a — thing  like  that!" 

Miss  Samstag' s  voice  thickened  up  then  quite 
frantically  into  a  little  scream  that  knotted  in  her 
throat,  and  she  was  suddenly  so  small  and  stricken 
that,  with  a  gasp  for  fear  she  might  crumple  up 
where  she  stood,  Mrs.  Samstag  leaned  forward, 
catching  her  again  by  the  sash. 

"Alma!" 

It  was  only  for  an  instant,  however.  Suddenly 
Miss  Samstag  was  her  coolly  firm  little  self,  the  bang 
of  authority  back  in  her  voice, 

24 


SHE    WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

"You  can't  marry  Louis  Latz." 

"Can't  I?    Watch  me." 

"You  can't  do  that  to  a  nice,  deserving  fellow 
like  him!" 

"Do  what?" 

"That!" 

Then  Mrs.  Samstag  threw  up  both  her  hands  to 
her  face,  rocking  in  an  agony  of  self -abandon  that 
was  rather  horrid  to  behold. 

"O  God!  why  don't  you  put  me  out  of  it  all?  My 
misery!  I'm  a  leper  to  my  own  child !" 

"Oh— mamma— !" 

"Yes,  a  leper.  Hold  my  misfortune  against  me. 
Let  my  neuralgia  and  Doctor  Hey  man's  prescrip 
tion  to  cure  it  ruin  my  life.  Rob  me  of  what  happi 
ness  with  a  good  man  there  is  left  in  it  for  me.  I 
don't  want  happiness.  Don't  expect  it.  I'm  here 
just  to  suffer.  My  daughter  will  see  to  that.  Oh, 
I  know  what  is  on  your  mind.  You  want  to  make 
me  out  something — terrible — because  Doctor  Hey- 
man  once  taught  me  how  to  help  myself  a  little 
when  I'm  nearly  wild  with  neuralgia.  Those  were 
doctor's  orders.  I'll  kill  myself  before  I  let  you 
make  me  out  something  terrible.  I  never  even  knew 
what  it  was  before  the  doctor  gave  his  prescription. 
I'll  kill— you  hear?— kill  myself." 

She  was  hoarse.  She  was  tear  splotched  so  that 
her  lips  were  slippery  with  them,  and  while  the  ague 
of  her  passion  shook  her,  Alma,  her  own  face  swept 
white  and  her  voice  guttered  with  restraint,  took 
her  mother  into  the  cradle  of  her  arms  and  rocked 
and  hushed  her  there. 

"Mamma,  mamma,  what  are  you  saying?  I'm 

25 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

not  blaming  you,  sweetheart.  I  blame  him — Doctor 
Heyman — for  prescribing  it  in  the  beginning.  I 
know  your  fight.  How  brave  it  is.  Even  when  I'm 
Grossest  with  you,  I  realize.  Alma's  fighting  with  you 
dearest  every  inch  of  the  way  until — you're  cured! 
And  then — maybe — some  day — anything  you  want! 
But  not  now.  Mamma,  you  wouldn't  marry  Louis 
Latz  now!" 

"I  would.  He's  my  cure.  A  good  home  with  a 
good  man  and  money  enough  to  travel  and  forget 
myself.  Alma,  mamma  knows  she's  not  an  angel. 
Sometimes  when  she  thinks  what  she's  put  her  little 
girl  through  this  last  year  she  just  wants  to  go  out 
on  the  hilltop  where  she  caught  the  neuralgia  and  lie 
down  beside  that  grave  out  there  and — " 

"Mamma,  don't  talk  like  that!" 

"But  now's  my  chance,  Alma,  to  get  well.  I've 
too  much  worry  in  this  big  hotel  trying  to  keep  up 
big  expenses  on  little  money  and — " 

"I  know  it,  mamma.  That's  why  I'm  so  in  favor 
of  finding  ourselves  a  sweet,  tiny  little  apartment 
with  kitch— " 

"No!  Your  father  died  with  the  world  thinking 
him  a  rich  man  and  they  will  never  find  out  from  me 
that  he  wasn't.  I  won't  be  the  one  to  humiliate  his 
memory — a  man  who  enjoyed  keeping  up  appear 
ances  the  way  he  did.  Oh,  Alma,  Alma,  I'm  going 
to  get  well  now!  I  promise.  So  help  me  God  if  I 
ever  give  in  to — it  again." 

"Mamma,  please!  For  God's  sake,  you've  said 
the  same  thing  so  often,  only  to  break  your 
promise." 

"I've  been  weak,  Alma;  I  don't  deny  it.  But 

26 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

nobody  who  hasn't  been  tortured  as  I  have  can 
realize  what  it  means  to  get  relief  just  by — " 

"Mamma,  you're  not  playing  fair  this  minute. 
That's  the  frightening  part.  It  isn't  only  the  neu 
ralgia  any  more.  It's  just  desire.  That's  what's  so 
terrible  to  me,  mamma.  The  way  you  have  been 
taking  it  these  last  months.  Just  from — desire." 

Mrs.  Samstag  buried  her  face,  shuddering,  down 
into  her  hands. 

"O  God!    My  own  child  against  me!" 

"No,  mamma.  Why,  sweetheart,  nobody  knows 
better  than  I  do  how  sweet  and  good  you  are  when 
you  are  away  from — it.  We'll  fight  it  together  and 
win!  I'm  not  afraid.  It's  been  worse  this  last 
month  because  you've  been  nervous,  dear.  I  under 
stand  now.  You  see,  I — didn't  dream  of  you  and — 
Louis  Latz.  We'll  forget — we'll  take  a  little  two- 
room  apartment  of  our  own,  darling,  and  get  your 
mind  on  housekeeping,  and  I'll  take  up  stenography 
or  social  ser — " 

"What  good  am  I,  anyway?  No  good.  In  my 
own  way.  In  my  child's  way.  A  young  man  like 
Leo  Friedlander  crazy  to  propose  and  my  child 
can't  let  him  come  to  the  point  because  she  is  afraid 
to  leave  her  mother.  Oh,  I  know — I  know  more 
than  you  think  I  do.  Ruining  your  life!  That's 
what  I  am,  and  mine,  too!" 

Tears  now  ran  in  hot  cascades  down  Alma's 
cheeks. 

"Why,  mamma,  as  if  I  cared  about  anything — 
just  so  you — get  well." 

"I  know.    I  know  the  way  you  tremble  when  he 
telephones,  and  color  up  when  he — " 
3  27 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

1 '  Mamma,  how  can  you  ? ' ' 

"I  know  what  I've  done.    Ruined  my  baby's  life, 
and  now — " 
"No!" 

"Then  help  me,  Alma.  Louis  wants  me  for  his 
happiness.  I  want  him  for  mine.  Nothing  will  cure 
me  like  having  a  good  man  to  live  up  to.  The 
minute  I  find  myself  getting  the  craving  for — it — 
don't  you  see,  baby,  fear  that  a  good  husband  like 
Louis  could  find  out  such  a  thing  about  me  would 
hold  me  back?  See,  Alma?" 

"That's  a  wrong  basis  to  start  married  life  on — " 
"I'm  a  woman  who  needs  a  man  to  baby  her, 
Alma.  That's  the  cure  for  me.  Not  to  let  me  would 
be  the  same  as  to  kill  me.  I've  been  a  bad,  weak 
woman,  Alma,  to  be  so  afraid  that  maybe  Leo 
Friedlander  would  steal  you  away  from  me.  We'll 
make  it  a  double  wedding,  baby!" 

"Mamma!    Mamma!    I'll  never  leave  you." 
"All  right,  then,  so  you  won't  think  your  new 
father  and  me  want  to  get  rid  of  you,  the  first 
thing  we'll  pick  out  in  our  new  home,  he  said  it 
himself  to-night,  'is  Alma's  room.'" 
"I  tell  you  it's  wrong.    It's  wrong!" 
"The  rest  with  Leo  can  come  later,  after  I've 
proved  to  you  for  a  little  while  that  I'm  cured. 
Alma,  don't  cry!    It's  my  cure.    Just  think,  a  good 
man!     A  beautiful  home  to  take  my  mind  off — 
worry.     He  said  to-night  he  wants  to  spend  a  for 
tune,  if  necessary,  to  cure — my  neuralgia." 

"Oh,  mamma!    Mamma!  if  it  were  only — that!" 
"Alma,  if  I  promise  on  my — my  life!    I  never  felt 
the  craving  so  little  as  I  do — now." 

28 


SHE    WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

"You've  said  that  before — and  before." 

"But  never  with  such  a  wonderful  reason.  It's 
the  beginning  of  a  new  life.  I  know  it.  I'm 
cured!" 

"Mamma,  if  I  thought  you  meant  it." 

"I  do.  Alma,  look  at  me.  This  very  minute  I've 
a  real  jumping  case  of  neuralgia.  But  I  wouldn't 
have  anything  for  it  except  the  electric  pad.  I  feel 
fine.  Strong.  Alma,  the  bad  times  with  me  are 
over." 

"Oh,  mamma!  Mamma,  how  I  pray  you're 
right." 

"You'll  thank  God  for  the  day  that  Louis  Latz 
proposed  to  me.  Why,  I'd  rather  cut  of!  my  right 
hand  than  marry  a  man  who  could  ever  live  to  learn 
such  a — thing  about  me." 

"But  it's  not  fair.  We'll  have  to  explain  to  him, 
dear,  that  we  hope  you're  cured  now,  but — " 

"If  you  do — if  you  do — I'll  kill  myself!  I  won't 
live  to  bear  that !  You  don't  want  me  cured.  You 
want  to  get  rid  of  me,  to  degrade  me  until  I  kill 
myself!  If  I  was  ever  anything  else  than  what  I 
am  now — to  Louis  Latz — anything  but  his  ideal — 
Alma,  you  won't  tell!  Kill  me,  but  don't  tell — 
don't  tell!" 

"Why,  you  know  I  wouldn't,  sweetheart,  if  it  is 
so  terrible  to  you.  Never." 

"Say  it  again." 

"Never." 

"As  if  it  hasn't  been  terrible  enough  that  you 
should  have  to  know.  But  it's  over,  Alma.  Your 
bad  times  with  me  are  finished.  I'm  cured." 

There  were  no  words  that  Miss  Samstag  could 

29 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

force  through  the  choke  of  her  tears,  so  she  sat  cheek 
to  her  mother's  cheek,  the  trembling  she  could  no 
longer  control  racing  through  her  like  a  chill. 

"Oh— how— I  hope  so!" 

"I  know  so." 

"But  wait  a  little  while,  mamma — just  a  year." 

"No!    No!" 

"A  few  months." 

"No,  he  wants  it  soon.  The  sooner  the  better 
at  our  age.  Alma,  mamma's  cured!  What  happi 
ness  !  Kiss  me,  darling.  So  help  me  God  to  keep  my 
promises  to  you!  Cured,  Alma,  cured." 

And  so  in  the  end,  with  a  smile  on  her  lips  that 
belied  almost  to  herself  the  little  run  of  fear  through 
her  heart,  Alma's  last  kiss  to  her  mother  that  night 
was  the  long  one  of  felicitation. 

And  because  love,  even  the  talk  of  it,  is  so  gamy 
on  the  lips  of  woman  to  woman,  they  lay  in  bed, 
heartbeat  to  heartbeat,  the  electric  pad  under 
her  pillow  warm  to  the  hurt  of  Mrs.  Samstag's  brow, 
and  talked,  these  two,  deep  into  the  stilliness  of  the 
hotel  night. 

"I'm  going  to  be  the  best  wife  to  him,  Alma. 
You.  see,  the  woman  that  marries  Louis  has  to 
measure  up  to  the  grand  ideas  of  her  he  got  from  his 
mother." 

"You  were  a  good  wife  once,  mamma.  You'll  be 
it  again." 

"That's  another  reason,  Alma;  it  means  my — 
cure.  Living  up  to  the  ideas  of  a  good  man." 

"Mamma!  Mamma!  you  can't  backslide  now — 
ever." 

"My  little  baby,  who's  helped  me  through  such 

30 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

bad  times,  it's  your  turn  now,  Alma,  to  be  care  free 
like  other  girls." 

"Ill  never  leave  you,  mamma,  even  if — he 
— Latz — shouldn't  want  me." 

"He  will,  darling,  and  does!  Those  were  his 
words.  *  A  room  for  Alma.' " 

"I'll  never  leave  you!" 

"You  will!  Much  as  Louis  and  I  want  you  with 
us  every  minute,  we  won't  stand  in  your  way! 
That's  another  reason  I'm  so  happy,  Alma.  I'm 
not  alone  any  more  now.  Leo's  so  crazy  over  you, 
just  waiting  for  the  chance  to — pop — " 

"Shh— sh— h— h!" 

"Don't  tremble  so,  darling.  Mamma  knows. 
He  told  Mrs.  Gronauer  last  night  when  she  was  jok 
ing  him  to  buy  a  ten-dollar  carnation  for  the  Con 
valescent  Home  Bazaar,  that  he  would  only  take 
one  if  it  was  white,  because  little  white  flowers 
reminded  him  of  Alma  Samstag." 

"Oh,  mamma!" 

"Say,  it  is  as  plain  as  the  nose  on  your  face.  He 
can't  keep  his  eyes  off  you.  He  sells  goods  to  Doctor 
Gronauer's  clinic  and  he  says  the  same  thing  about 
him.  It  makes  me  so  happy,  Alma,  to  think  you 
won't  have  to  hold  him  off  any  more." 

"I'll  never  leave  you.    Never ! ' ' 

Nevertheless,  she  was  the  first  to  drop  off  to 
sleep,  pink  there  in  the  dark  with  the  secret  of  her 
blushes. 

Then  for  Mrs.  Samstag  the  travail  set  in.  Lying 
there  with  her  raging  head  tossing  this  way  and  that 
on  the  heated  pillow,  she  heard  with  cruel  aware 
ness  the  minutae,  all  the  faint  but  clarified  noises 

31 


SHE    WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

that  can  make  a  night  seem  so  long.  The  distant 
click  of  the  elevator  depositing  a  nighthawk.  A 
plong  of  the  bedspring.  Somebody's  cough.  A 
train's  shriek.  The  jerk  of  plumbing.  A  window 
being  raised.  That  creak  which  lies  hidden  in  every 
darkness,  like  a  mysterious  knee  joint.  By  three 
o'clock  she  was  a  quivering  victim  to  these  petty 
concepts,  and  her  pillow  so  explored  that  not  a 
spot  but  was  rumpled  to  the  aching  lay  of  he 
cheek. 

Once  Alma,  as  a  rule  supersensitive  to  her  mother's 
slightest  unrest,  floated  up  for  the  moment  out  of 
her  young  sleep,  but  she  was  very  drowsy  and  very 
tired,  and  dream  tides  were  almost  carrying  her  back 
as  she  said: 

' '  Mamma,  you  all  right  ? ' ' 

Simulating  sleep,  Mrs.  Samstag  lay  tense  until  her 
daughter's  breathing  resumed  its  light  cadence. 

Then  at  four  o'clock  the  kind  of  nervousness  that 
Mrs.  Samstag  had  learned  to  fear  began  to  roll  over 
her  in  waves,  locking  her  throat  and  curling  her  toes 
and  fingers  and  her  tongue  up  dry  against  the  roof 
of  her  mouth. 

She  must  concentrate  now — must  steer  her  mind 
away  from  the  craving ! 

Now  then:  West  End  Avenue.  Louis  liked  the 
apartments  there.  Luxurious.  Quiet.  Residential. 
Circassian  walnut  or  mahogany  dining  room?  Alma 
should  decide.  A  baby-grand  piano.  Later  to  be 
Alma's  engagement  gift  from  "mamma  and — 
papa."  No,  "mamma  and  Louis."  Better  so. 

How  her  neck  and  her  shoulder  blade  and  now 
her  elbow  were  flaming  with  the  pain.  She  cried  a 

32 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

little,  quite  silently,  and  tried  a  poor,  futile  scheme 
for  easing  her  head  in  the  crotch  of  her  elbow. 

Now  then:  She  must  knit  Louis  some  neckties. 
The  silk-sweater  stitch  would  do.  Married  in  a 
traveling  suit.  One  of  those  smart  dark-blue  twills 
like  Mrs.  Gronauer,  junior's.  Topcoat — sable.  Louis' 
hair  thinning.  Tonic.  O  God !  let  me  sleep !  Please, 
God !  The  wheeze  rising  in  her  closed  throat.  That 
little  threatening  desire  that  must  not  shape  itself! 
It  darted  with  the  hither  and  thither  of  a  bee  bum 
bling  against  a  garden  wall.  No!  No!  Ugh!  the 
vast  chills  of  nervousness.  The  flaming,  the  craving 
chills  of  desire ! 

Just  this  last  giving-in.  This  one.  To  be  rested 
and  fresh  for  him  to-morrow.  Then  never  again. 
The  little  beaded  hand  bag.  O  God !  help  me  I  That 
burning  ache  to  rest  and  to  uncurl  of  nervousness. 
All  the  thousand  thousand  little  pores  of  her  body, 
screaming  each  one  to  be  placated.  They  hurt  the 
entire  surface  of  her.  That  great  storm  at  sea  in 
her  head;  the  crackle  of  lightning  down  that 
arm — 

"Let  me  see — Circassian  walnut — baby  grand — " 
The  pores  demanding,  crying — shrieking — 

It  was  then  that  Carrie  Samstag,  even  in  her 
lovely  pink  nightdress  a  crone  with  pain,  and  the 
cables  out  dreadfully  in  her  neck,  began  by  infini 
tesimal  processes  to  swing  herself  gently  to  the  side 
of  the  bed,  unrelaxed  inch  by  unrelaxed  inch,  softly 
and  with  the  cunning  born  of  travail. 

It  was  actually  a  matter  of  fifteen  minutes,  that 
breathless  swing  toward  the  floor,  the  mattress 
rising  after  her  with  scarcely  a  whisper  and  her  two 

33 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

bare  feet  landing  patly  into  the  pale-blue  room 
slippers,  there  beside  the  bed. 

Then  her  bag,  the  beaded  one  on  the  end  of  the 
divan.  The  slow,  taut  feeling  for  it  and  the  floor 
that  creaked  twice,  starting  the  sweat  out  over  her. 

It  was  finally  after  more  tortuous  saving  of  floor 
creaks  and  the  interminable  opening  and  closing  of 
a  door  that  Carrie  Samstag,  the  beaded  bag  in  her 
hand,  found  herself  face  to  face  with  herself  in  the 
mirror  of  the  bathroom  medicine  chest. 

She  was  shuddering  with  one  of  the  hot  chills. 
The  needle  and  little  glass  piston  out  of  the  hand 
bag  and  with  a  dry  little  insuck  of  breath,  pinching 
up  little  areas  of  flesh  from  her  arm,  bent  on  a  good 
firm  perch,  as  it  were. 

There  were  undeniable  pockmarks  on  Mrs.  Sam- 
stag's  right  forearm.  Invariably  it  sickened  her  to 
see  them.  Little  graves.  Oh!  oh!  little  graves! 
For  Alma.  Herself.  And  now  Louis.  Just  once. 
Just  one  more  little  grave — 

And  Alma,  answering  her  somewhere  down  in  her 
heartbeats:  "No,  mamma.  No,  mamma!  No!  No! 
No!" 

But  all  the  little  pores  gaping.  Mouths!  The 
pinching  up  of  the  skin.  Here,  this  little  clean  and 
white  area. 

"No,  mamma!    No,  mamma!    No!    No!    No!" 

"Just  once,  darling?"  Oh — oh — little  graves  for 
Alma  and  Louis.  No !  No !  No ! 

Somehow,  some  way,  with  all  the  little  mouths 
still  parched  and  gaping  and  the  clean  and  quite 
white  area  unblemished,  Mrs.  Samstag  found  her 
way  back  to  bed.  She  was  in  a  drench  of  sweat 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

when  she  got  there  and  the  conflagration  of  neu 
ralgia,  curiously  enough,  was  now  roaring  in  her 
ears  so  that  it  seemed  to  her  she  could  hear  her  pain. 

Her  daughter  lay  asleep,  with  her  face  to  the  wall, 
her  flowing  hair  spread  in  a  fan  against  the  pillow 
and  her  body  curled  up  cozily.  The  remaining  hours 
of  the  night,  in  a  kind  of  waking  faint  she  could  never 
find  the  words  to  describe,  Mrs.  Samstag,  with  that 
dreadful  dew  of  her  sweat  constantly  out  over  her, 
lay  with  her  twisted  lips  to  the  faint  perfume  of  that 
fan  of  Alma's  flowing  hair,  her  toes  curling  in  and 
out.  Out  and  in.  Toward  morning  she  slept. 
Actually,  sweetly,  and  deeply,  as  if  she  could  never 
have  done  with  deep  draughts  of  it. 

She  awoke  to  the  brief  patch  of  sunlight  that  smiled 
into  their  apartment  for  about  eight  minutes  of  each 
forenoon. 

Alma  was  at  the  pretty  chore  of  lifting  the  trays 
from  a  hamper  of  roses.  She  placed  a  shower  of 
them  on  her  mother's  coverlet  with  a  kiss,  a  deeper 
and  dearer  one,  somehow,  this  morning. 

There  was  a  card,  and  Mrs.  Samstag  read  it  and 
laughed : 

Good  morning,  Carrie. 
Louis. 

They  seemed  to  her,  poor  dear,  these  roses,  to  be 
pink  with  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  dawn. 

On  the  spur  of  the  moment  and  because  the  same 
precipitate  decision  that  determined  Louis  Latz's  suc 
cesses  in  Wall  Street  determined  him  here,  they  were 
married  the  following  Thursday  in  Lakewood,  New 

35 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

Jersey,  without  even  allowing  Carrie  time  for  the 
blue-twill  traveling  suit.  She  wore  her  brown-velvet, 
instead,  looking  quite  modish,  a  sable  wrap,  gift  of 
the  groom,  lending  genuine  magnificence. 

Alma  was  there,  of  course,  in  a  beautiful  fox  scarf, 
also  gift  of  the  groom,  and  locked  in  a  pale  kind  of 
tensity  that  made  her  seem  more  than  ever  like  a 
little  white  flower  to  Leo  Friedlander,  the  sole  other 
attendant,  and  who  during  the  ceremony  yearned  at 
her  with  his  gaze.  But  her  eyes  were  squeezed  tight 
against  his,  as  if  to  forbid  herself  the  consciousness 
that  life  seemed  suddenly  so  richly  sweet  to  her — oh, 
so  richly  sweet! 


There  was  a  time  during  the  first  months  of  the 
married  life  of  Louis  and  Carrie  Latz  when  it  seemed 
to  Alma,  who  in  the  sanctity  of  her  lovely  little 
ivory  bedroom  all  appointed  in  rose  enamel  toilet 
trifles,  could  be  prayerful  with  the  peace  of  it,  that 
the  old  Carrie,  who  could  come  pale  and  terrible  out 
of  her  drugged  nights,  belonged  to  some  grimacing 
and  chimeric  past.  A  dead  past  that  had  buried  its 
dead  and  its  hatchet. 

There  had  been  a  month  at  a  Hot  Springs  in  the 
wintergreen  heart  of  Virginia,  and  whatever  Louis 
may  have  felt  in  his  heart  of  his  right  to  the  privacy 
of  these  honeymoon  days  was  carefully  belied  on  his 
lips,  and  at  Alma's  depriving  him  now  and  then  of 
his  wife's  company,  packing  her  off  to  rest  when  he 
wanted  a  climb  with  her  up  a  mountain  slope  or  a 
drive  over  piny  roads,  he  could  still  smile  and  pinch 
her  cheek. 

36 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

" You're  stingy  to  me  with  my  wife,  Alma,"  he 
said  to  her  upon  one  of  these  provocations.  "I 
don't  believe  she's  got  a  daughter  at  all,  but  a  little 
policeman  instead." 

And  Alma  smiled  back,  out  of  the  agony  of  her 
constant  consciousness  that  she  was  insinuating  her 
presence  upon  him,  and  resolutely,  so  that  her  fear 
for  him  should  always  subordinate  her  fear  of  him, 
she  bit  down  her  sensitiveness  in  proportion  to  the 
rising  tide  of  his  growing,  but  still  politely  held  in 
check,  bewilderment. 

Once,  these  first  weeks  of  their  marriage,  be 
cause  she  saw  the  dreaded  signal  of  the  muddy  pools 
under  her  mother's  eyes  and  the  little  quivering 
nerve  beneath  the  temple,  she  shut  him  out  of  her 
presence  for  a  day  and  a  night,  and  when  he  came 
fuming  up  every  few  minutes  from  the  hotel  veranda, 
miserable  and  fretting,  met  him  at  the  closed  door 
of  her  mother's  darkened  room  and  was  adamant. 

"It  won't  hurt  if  I  tiptoe  in  and  sit  with  her,"  he 
pleaded. 

* '  No,  Louis.  No  one  knows  how  to  get  her  through 
these  spells  like  I  do.  The  least  excitement  will  only 
prolong  her  pain." 

He  trotted  off,  then,  down  the  hotel  corridor,  with 
a  strut  to  his  resentment  that  was  bantam  and  just 
a  little  fighty. 

That  night  as  Alma  lay  beside  her  mother,  holding 
off  sleep  and  watching,  Carrie  rolled  her  eyes  side- 
wise  with  the  plea  of  a  stricken  dog  in  them. 

"Alma,"  she  whispered,  "for  God's  sake!  Just 
this  once.  To  tide  me  over.  One  shot — darling. 
Alma,  if  you  love  me?" 

37 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

Later  there  was  a  struggle  between  them  that 
hardly  bears  relating.  A  lamp  was  overturned.  But 
toward  morning,  when  Carrie  lay  exhausted,  but  at 
rest  in  her  daughter's  arms,  she  kept  muttering  in 
her  sleep : 

"Thank  you,  baby.  You  saved  me.  Never  leave 
me,  Alma.  Never — never — never.  You  saved  me, 
Alma." 

And  then  the  miracle  of  those  next  months.  The 
return  to  New  York.  The  happily  busy  weeks  of 
furnishing  and  the  unlimited  gratifications  of  the 
well-filled  purse.  The  selection  of  the  limousine 
with  the  special  body  that  was  fearfully  and  wonder 
fully  made  in  mulberry  upholstery  with  mother-of- 
pearl  caparisons.  The  fourteen  -  room  apartment 
on  West  End  Avenue  with  four  baths,  drawing-room 
of  pink-brocaded  walls,  and  Carrie's  Roman  bath 
room  that  was  precisely  as  large  as  her  old  hotel 
sitting  room,  with  two  full-length  wall  mirrors,  a 
dressing  table  canopied  in  white  lace  over  white 
satin,  and  the  marble  bath  itself,  two  steps  down  and 
with  rubber  curtains  that  swished  after. 

There  were  evenings  when  Carrie,  who  loved  the 
tyranny  of  things  with  what  must  have  been  a  sur 
vival  within  her  of  the  bazaar  instinct,  would  fall 
asleep  almost  directly  after  dinner,  her  head  back 
against  her  husband's  shoulder,  roundly  tired  out 
after  a  day  all  cluttered  up  with  matching  the  blue 
upholstery  of  their  bedroom  with  taffeta  bed  hang 
ings.  Shopping  for  a  strip  of  pantry  linoleum  that 
was  just  the  desired  slate  color.  Calculating  with 
electricians  over  the  plugs  for  floor  lamps.  Herself 
edging  pantry  shelves  in  cotton  lace. 

38 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

Latz  liked  her  so,  with  her  fragrantly  coiffured 
head,  scarcely  gray,  back  against  his  shoulder,  and 
with  his  newspapers,  Wall  Street  journals  and  the 
comic  weeklies  which  he  liked  to  read,  would  sit  an 
entire  evening  thus,  moving  only  when  his  joints 
rebelled,  his  pipe  smoke  carefully  directed  away  from 
her  face. 

Weeks  and  weeks  of  this,  and  already  Louis  Latz's 
trousers  were  a  little  out  of  crease,  and  Mrs.  Latz, 
after  eight  o'clock  and  under  cover  of  a  very  fluffy 
and  very  expensive  negligee,  would  unhook  her  stays. 

Sometimes  friends  came  in  for  a  game  of  small- 
stake  poker,  but  after  the  second  month  they  counter 
manded  the  standing  order  for  Saturday  night 
musical-comedy  seats.  So  often  they  discovered 
it  was  pleasant er  to  remain  at  home.  Indeed,  during 
these  days  of  household  adjustment,  as  many  as  four 
evenings  a  week  Mrs.  Latz  dozed  there  against  her 
husband's  shoulder,  until  about  ten,  when  he  kissed 
her  awake  to  forage  with  him  in  the  great  white 
porcelain  refrigerator  and  then  to  bed. 

And  Alma.  Almost  she  tiptoed  through  these 
months.  Not  that  her  scorching  awareness  of  what 
must  have  lain  low  in  Louis'  mind  ever  diminished. 
Sometimes,  although  still  never  by  word,  she  could 
see  the  displeasure  mount  in  his  face. 

If  she  entered  in  on  a  t^te-^-t^te,  as  she  did  once, 
when  by  chance  she  had  sniffed  the  curative  smell 
of  spirits  of  camphor  on  the  air  of  a  room  through 
which  her  mother  had  passed,  and  came  to  drag  her 
off  that  night  to  share  her  own  lace-covered-and- 
ivory  bed. 

Again,  upon  the  occasion  of  an  impulsively  planned 

39 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

motor  trip  and  week-end  to  Long  Beach,  her  intrusion 
had  been  so  obvious. 

"Want  to  join  us,  Alma?" 

"Oh — yes — thank  you,  Louis." 

"But  I  thought  you  and  Leo  were — " 

"No,  no.  I'd  rather  go  with  you  and  mamma, 
Louis." 

Even  her  mother  had  smiled  rather  strainedly. 
Louis'  invitation,  politely  uttered,  had  said  so 
plainly,  "Are  we  two  never  to  be  alone,  your  mother 
and  I?" 

Oh,  there  was  no  doubt  that  Louis  Latz  was  in 
love  and  with  all  the  delayed  fervor  of  first  youth. 

There  was  something  rather  throat-catching  about 
his  treatment  of  her  mother  that  made  Alma  want 
to  cry. 

He  would  never  tire  of  marveling,  not  alone  at  the 
wonder  of  her,  but  at  the  wonder  that  she  was  his. 

"No  man  has  ever  been  as  lucky  in  women  as  I 
have,  Carrie,"  he  told  her  once  in  Alma's  hearing. 
"It  seemed  to  me  that  after — my  little  mother  there 
couldn't  ever  be  another — and  now  you!" 

At  the  business  of  sewing  some  beads  on  a  lamp 
shade  Carrie  looked  up,  her  eyes  dewy. 

"And  I  felt  that  way  about  one  good  husband," 
she  said,  "and  now  I  see  there  could  be  two." 

Alma  tiptoed  out. 

The  third  month  of  this  she  was  allowing  Leo 
Friedlander  his  two  evenings  a  week.  Once  to  the 
theater  in  a  modish  little  sedan  car  which  Leo  drove 
himself.  One  evening  at  home  in  the  rose-and- 
mauve  drawing-room.  It  delighted  Louis  and  Carrie 
slyly  to  have  in  their  friends  for  poker  over  the 

40 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

dining-room  table  these  evenings,  leaving  the  young 
people  somewhat  indirectly  chaperoned  until  as 
late  as  midnight.  Louis'  attitude  with  Leo  was  one 
of  winks,  quirks,  slaps  on  the  back,  and  the  curving 
voice  of  innuendo. 

"Come  on  in,  Leo;  the  water's  fine!" 

"Louis!"  This  from  Alma,  stung  to  crimson  and 
not  arch  enough  to  feign  that  she  did  not  understand. 

"Loo,  don't  tease,"  said  Carrie,  smiling,  but  then 
closing  her  eyes  as  if  to  invoke  help  to  want  this 
thing  to  come  to  pass. 

But  Leo  was  frankly  the  lover,  kept  not  without 
difficulty  on  the  edge  of  his  ardor.  A  city  youth 
with  gymnasium-bred  shoulders,  fine,  pole-vaulter's 
length  of  limb,  and  a  clean  tan  skin  that  bespoke 
cold  drubbings  with  Turkish  towels. 

And  despite  herself,  Alma,  who  was  not  without  a 
young  girl's  feelings  for  nice  detail,  could  thrill  to 
this  sartorial  svelteness  and  to  the  patent-leather  lay 
of  his  black  hair  which  caught  the  light  like  a 
polished  floor. 

In  the  lingo  of  Louis  Latz,  he  was  "a  rattling  good 
business  man,  too."  He  shared  with  his  father 
partnership  in  a  manufacturing  business — "Fried- 
lander  Clinical  Supply  Company" — which,  since 
his  advent  from  high  school  into  the  already 
enormously  rich  firm,  had  almost  doubled  its  volume 
of  business. 

The  kind  of  sweetness  he  found  in  Alma  he  could 
never  articulate  even  to  himself.  In  some  ways  she 
seemed  hardly  to  have  the  pressure  of  vitality  to 
match  his,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  just  that  slower 
beat  to  her  may  have  heightened  his  sense  of  prowess. 


SHE    WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

His  greatest  delight  seemed  to  lie  in  her  pallid  love 
liness.  "White  honeysuckle,"  he  called  her,  and 
the  names  of  all  the  beautiful  white  flowers  he  knew. 
And  then  one  night,  to  the  rattle  of  poker  chips  from 
the  remote  dining  room,  he  jerked  her  to  him  with 
out  preamble,  kissing  her  mouth  down  tightly  against 
her  teeth. 

"My  sweetheart!  My  little  white  carnation 
sweetheart!  I  won't  be  held  off  any  longer.  I'm 
going  to  cany  you  away  for  my  little  moonflower 
wife." 

She  sprang  back  prettier  than  he  had  ever  seen 
her  in  the  dishevelment  from  where  his  embrace  had 
dragged  at  her  hair. 

"You  mustn't,"  she  cried,  but  there  was  enough  of 
the  conquering  male  in  him  to  read  easily  into  this  a 
mere  plating  over  her  desire. 

"You  can't  hold  me  at  arm's  length  any  longer. 
You've  maddened  me  for  months.  I  love  you.  You 
love  me.  You  do.  You  do,"  and  crushed  her  to 
him,  but  this  time  his  pain  and  his  surprise  genuine 
as  she  sprang  back,  quivering. 

"No,  I  tell  you.  No!  No!  No!"  and  sat  down 
trembling. 

"Why,  Alma!"  And  he  sat  down,  too,  rather 
palely,  at  the  remote  end  of  the  divan. 

"You —  I — mustn't!"  she  said,  frantic  to  keep 
her  lips  from  twisting,  her  little  lacy  fribble  of  a 
handkerchief  a  mere  string  from  winding. 

"Mustn't  what?" 

"Mustn't,"  was  all  she  could  repeat  and  not  weep 
her  words. 

"Won't— I— do?" 

42 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 


"It's— mamma." 
"What?" 


"Her." 

"Her  what,  my  little  white  buttonhole  carna 
tion?" 

' '  You  see— I—    She's  all  alone." 

"You  adorable,  she's  got  a  brand-new  husky 
husband." 

"No — you  don't — understand." 

Then,  on  a  thunderclap  of  inspiration,  hitting  his 
knee: 

"I  have  it.  Mamma-baby!  That's  it.  My  girlie 
is  a  cry-baby,  mamma-baby!"  And  made  to  slide 
along  the  divan  toward  her,  but  up  flew  her  two 
small  hands,  like  fans. 

"No,"  she  said,  with  the  little  bang  back  in  her 
voice  which  steadied  him  again.  "I  mustn't!  You 
see,  we're  so  close.  Sometimes  it's  more  as  if  I  were 
the  mother  and  she  my  little  girl." 

"Alma,  that's  beautiful,  but  it's  silly,  too.  But 
tell  me  first  of  all,  mamma-baby,  that  you  do  care. 
Tell  me  that  first,  dearest,  and  then  we  can  talk." 

The  kerchief  was  all  screwed  up  now,  so  tightly 
that  it  could  stiffly  unwind  of  itself. 

"She's  not  well,  Leo.  That  terrible  neuralgia — 
that's  why  she  needs  me  so." 

"Nonsense!  She  hasn't  had  a  spell  for  weeks. 
That's  Louis'  great  brag,  that  he's  curing  her.  Oh, 
Alma,  Alma,  that's  not  a  reason;  that's  an 
excuse!" 

"Leo — you  don't  understand." 

"I'm  afraid  I — don't,"  he  said,  looking  at  her 
with  a  sudden  intensity  that  startled  her  with  a 
4  43 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

quick  suspicion  of  his  suspicions,  but  then  he 
smiled. 

"Alma!  "he  said,  "Alma!" 

Misery  made  her  dumb. 

"Why,  don't  you  know,  dear,  that  your  mother 
is  better  able  to  take  care  of  herself  than  you 
are?  She's  bigger  and  stronger.  You — you're  a 
little  white  flower,  that  I  want  to  wear  on  my 
heart." 

* '  Leo — give  me  time.    Let  me  think. ' ' 

"A  thousand  thinks,  Alma,  but  I  love  you.  I 
love  you  and  want  so  terribly  for  you  to  love  me 
back." 

"I— do." 

"Then  tell  me  with  kisses." 

Again  she  pressed  him  to  arm's  length. 

"Please,  Leo!  Not  yet.  Let  me  think.  Just  one 
day.  To-morrow." 

"No,  no!    Now!" 

"To-morrow." 

"When?" 

"Evening." 

"No,  morning." 

"All  right,  Leo — to-morrow  morning — " 

"I'll  sit  up  all  night  and  count  every  second  in 
every  minute  and  every  minute  in  every  hour." 

She  put  up  her  soft  little  fingers  to  his  lips. 

"Dear  boy,"  she  said. 

And  then  they  kissed,  and  after  a  little  swoon  to 
his  nearness  she  struggled  like  a  caught  bird  and  a 
guilty  one. 

"Please  go,  Leo,"  she  said.    "Leave  me  alone—' 

"Little  mamma-baby  sweetheart,"  he  said.  'Til 

44 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

build  you  a  nest  right  next  to  hers.  Good  night, 
little  white  flower.  I'll  be  waiting,  and  remember, 
counting  every  second  of  every  minute  and  every 
minute  of  every  hour." 

For  a  long  time  she  remained  where  he  had  left 
her,  forward  on  the  pink  divan,  her  head  with  a 
listening  look  to  it,  as  if  waiting  an  answer  for  the 
prayers  that  she  sent  up. 


At  two  o'clock  that  morning,  by  what  intuition 
she  would  never  know,  and  with  such  leverage  that 
she  landed  out  of  bed  plump  on  her  two  feet,  Alma, 
with  all  her  faculties  into  trace  like  fire  horses, 
sprang  out  of  sleep. 

It  was  a  matter  of  twenty  steps  across  the  hall. 
In  the  white-tiled  Roman  bathroom,  the  muddy 
circles  suddenly  out  and  angry  beneath  her  eyes, 
her  mother  was  standing  before  one  of  the  full- 
length  mirrors — snickering. 

There  was  a  fresh  little  grave  on  the  inside  of  her 
right  forearm. 


Sometimes  in  the  weeks  that  followed  a  sense  of 
the  miracle  of  what  was  happening  would  clutch  at 
Alma's  throat  like  a  fear. 

Louis  did  not  know. 

That  the  old  neuralgic  recurrences  were  more 
frequent  again,  yes.  Already  plans  for  a  summer 
trip  abroad,  on  a  curative  mission  bent,  were  taking 
shape.  There  was  a  famous  nerve  specialist,  the  one 
who  had  worked  such  wonders  on  his  mother's 

45 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

cruelly  rheumatic   limbs,  reassuringly  foremost  in 
his  mind. 

But  except  that  there  were  not  infrequent  and 
sometimes  twenty-four-hour  sieges  when  he  was 
denied  the  sight  of  his  wife,  he  had  learned,  with  a 
male's  acquiescence  to  the  frailties  of  the  other  sex, 
to  submit,  and,  with  no  great  understanding  of  pain, 
to  condone. 

And  as  if  to  atone  for  these  more  or  less  frequent 
lapses,  there  was  something  pathetic,  even  a  little 
heartbreaking,  in  Carrie's  zeal  for  his  well-being. 
No  duty  too  small.  One  night  she  wanted  to  unlace 
his  shoes  and  even  shine  them — would  have,  in  fact, 
except  for  his  fierce  catching  of  her  into  his  arms  and 
for  some  reason  his  tonsils  aching  as  he  kissed  her. 

Once  after  a  " spell"  she  took  out  every  garment 
from  his  wardrobe  and,  kissing  them  piece  by  piece, 
put  them  back  again,  and  he  found  her  so,  and  they 
cried  together,  he  of  happiness. 

In  his  utter  beatitude,  even  his  resentment  of 
Alma  continued  to  grow  but  slowly.  Once,  when 
after  forty-eight  hours  she  forbade  him  rather 
fiercely  an  entrance  into  his  wife's  room,  he  shoved 
her  aside  almost  rudely,  but,  at  Carrie's  little  shriek 
of  remonstrance  from  the  darkened  room,  backed  out 
shamefacedly,  and  apologized  next  day  in  the  con 
ciliatory  language  of  a  tiny  wrist  watch. 

But  a  break  came,  as  she  knew  and  feared  it  must. 

One  evening  during  one  of  these  attacks,  when  for 
two  days  Carrie  had  not  appeared  at  the  dinner 
table,  Alma,  entering  when  the  meal  was  almost 
over,  seated  herself  rather  exhaustedly  at  her 
mother's  place  opposite  her  stepfather. 

46 


SHE   WALKS   I-N   BEAUTY 

He  had  reached  the  stage  when  that  little  uncon 
scious  usurpation  in  itself  could  annoy  him. 

"How's  your  mother?"  he  asked,  dourly  for  him. 

"She's  asleep." 

"Funny.  This  is  the  third  attack  this  month,  and 
each  time  it  lasts  longer.  Confound  that  neuralgia ! ' ' 

"She's  easier  now." 

He  pushed  back  his  plate. 

"Then  I'll  go  in  and  sit  with  her  while  she 
sleeps." 

She,  who  was  so  fastidiously  dainty  of  manner, 
half  rose,  spilling  her  soup. 

"No,"  she  said,  "you  mustn't!  Not  now!" 
And  sat  down  again  hurriedly,  wanting  not  to  appear 
perturbed. 

A  curious  thing  happened  then  to  Louis.  His 
lower  lip  came  pursing  out  like  a  little  shelf  and  a 
hitherto  unsuspected  look  of  pigginess  fattened  over 
his  rather  plump  face. 

"You  quit  butting  into  me  and  my  wife's  affairs, 
you,  or  get  the  hell  out  of  here,"  he  said,  without 
raising  his  voice  or  his  manner. 

She  placed  her  hand  to  the  almost  unbearable 
flutter  of  her  heart. 

"Louis!    You  mustn't  talk  like  that  to — me!" 

"Don't  make  me  say  something  I'll  regret.  You! 
Only  take  this  tip,  you!  There's  one  of  two  things 
you  better  do.  Quit  trying  to  come  between  me 
and  her  or — get  out." 

"I—    She's  sick." 

"Naw,  she  ain't.  Not  as  sick  as  you  make  out. 
You're  trying,  God  knows  why,  to  keep  us  apart. 
I've  watched  you.  I  know  your  sneaking  kind. 

47 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

Still  water  runs  deep.    You've  never  missed  a  chance 
since  we're  married  to  keep  us  apart.    Shame ! " 

"I—    She—" 

"Now  mark  my  word,  if  it  wasn't  to  spare  her 
I'd  have  invited  you  out  long  ago.  Haven't  you 
got  any  pride?" 

"I  have.  I  have,"  she  almost  moaned,  and  could 
have  crumpled  up  there  and  swooned  her  humiliation. 

"You're  not  a  regular  girl.  You're  a  she-devil. 
That's  what  you  are !  Trying  to  come  between  your 
mother  and  me.  Ain't  you  ashamed?  What  is  it 
you  want?" 

"Louis— I  don't—" 

"First  you  turn  down  a  fine  fellow  like  Leo  Fried- 
lander,  so  he  don't  come  to  the  house  any  more, 
and  then  you  take  out  on  us  whatever  is  eating  you, 
by  trying  to  come  between  me  and  the  finest  woman 
that  ever  lived.  Shame!  Shame!" 

"Louis!"  she  said,  "Louis!"  wringing  her  hands 
in  a  dry  wash  of  agony,  "can't  you  understand? 
She'd  rather  have  me.  It  makes  her  nervous  trying 
to  pretend  to  you  that  she's  not  suffering  when  she 
is.  That's  all,  Louis.  You  see,  she's  not  ashamed 
to  suffer  before  me.  Why,  Louis — that's  all!  Why 
should  I  want  to  come  between  you  and  her?  Isn't 
she  dearer  to  me  than  anything  in  the  world,  and 
haven't  you  been  the  best  friend  to  me  a  girl  could 
have?  That's  all— Louis." 

He  was  placated  and  a  little  sorry  and  did  not 
insist  further  upon  going  into  the  room. 

"Funny,"  he  said.  "Funny,"  and,  adjusting  his 
spectacles,  snapped  open  his  newspaper  for  a  lonely 
evening. 

48 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

The  one  thing  that  perturbed  Alma  almost  more 
than  anything  else,  as  the  dreaded  cravings  grew, 
with  each  siege  her  mother  becoming  more  brutish 
and  more  given  to  profanity,  was  where  she  obtained 
the  soluble  tablets. 

The  well-thumbed  old  doctor's  prescription  she  had 
purloined  even  back  in  the  hotel  days,  and  embargo 
and  legislation  were  daily  making  more  and  more 
furtive  and  prohibitive  the  traffic  in  drugs. 

Once  Alma,  mistakenly,  too,  she  thought  later,  had 
suspected  a  chauffeur  of  collusion  with  her  mother 
and  abruptly  dismissed  him,  to  Louis'  rage. 

"What's  the  idea?"  he  said,  out  of  Carrie's  hear 
ing,  of  course.  "Who's  running  this  shebang, 
anyway?" 

Again,  after  Alma  had  guarded  her  well  for  days, 
scarcely  leaving  her  side,  Carrie  laughed  sardonically 
up  into  her  daughter's  face,  her  eyes  as  glassy  and 
without  swimming  fluid  as  a  doll's. 

"I  get  it!  But  wouldn't  you  like  to  know  where? 
Yah!"  And  to  Alma's  horror  slapped  her  quite 
roundly  across  the  cheek  so  that  for  an  hour  the 
sting,  the  shape  of  the  red  print  of  fingers,  lay  on  her 
face. 

One  night  in  what  had  become  the  horrible  sanc 
tity  of  that  bedchamber —  But  let  this  sum  it  up. 
When  Alma  was  nineteen  years  old  a  little  colony  of 
gray  hairs  was  creeping  in  on  each  temple. 

And  then  one  day,  after  a  long  period  of  quiet, 
when  Carrie  had  lavished  her  really  great  wealth  of 
contrite  love  upon  her  daughter  and  husband, 
spending  on  Alma  and  loading  her  with  gifts  of 
jewelry  and  finery,  somehow  to  express  her  grateful 

49 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

adoration  of  her,  paying  her  husband  the  secret 
penance  of  twofold  fidelity  to  his  well-being  and 
every  whim,  Alma,  returning  from  a  trip  taken  reluc 
tantly  and  at  her  mother's  bidding  down  to  the  base 
ment  trunk  room,  found  her  gone,  a  modish  black- 
lace  hat  and  the  sable  coat  missing  from  the  closet. 

It  was  early  afternoon,  sunlit  and  pleasantly  cold. 

The  first  rush  of  panic  and  the  impulse  to  dash 
after  stayed,  she  forced  herself  down  into  a  chair, 
striving  with  the  utmost  difficulty  for  coherence  of 
procedure. 

Where  in  the  half  hour  of  her  absence  had  her 
mother  gone?  Matine'e?  Impossible!  Walking? 
Hardly  possible.  Upon  inquiry  in  the  kitchen, 
neither  of  the  maids  had  seen  nor  heard  her  depart. 
Motoring?  With  a  hand  that  trembled  in  spite  of 
itself  Alma  telephoned  the  garage.  Car  and  chauf 
feur  were  there.  Incredible  as  it  seemed,  Alma, 
upon  more  than  one  occasion,  had  lately  been 
obliged  to  remind  her  mother  that  she  was  becoming 
careless  of  the  old  pointedly  rosy  hands.  Mani 
curist?  She  telephoned  the  Bon  Ton  Beauty  Par 
lors.  No.  Where?  O  God!  Where?  Which  way  to 
begin  ?  That  was  what  troubled  her  most.  To  start 
right  so  as  not  to  lose  a  precious  second. 

Suddenly,  and  for  no  particular  reason,  Alma 
began  a  hurried  search  through  her  mother's  dresser 
drawers  of  lovely  personal  appointments.  Turning 
over  whole  mounds  of  fresh  white  gloves,  delving 
into  nests  of  sheer  handkerchiefs  and  stacks  of  webby 
lingerie.  Then  for  a  while  she  stood  quite  helplessly, 
looking  into  the  mirror,  her  hands  closed  about  her 
throat, 

5° 


SHE   WALKS    IN    BEAUTY 

"Please,  God,  where?" 

A  one-inch  square  of  newspaper  clipping,  appar 
ently  gouged  from  the  sheet  with  a  hairpin,  caught 
her  eye  from  the  top  of  one  of  the  gold-backed  hair 
brushes.  Dawningly,  Alma  read. 

It  described  in  brief  detail  the  innovation  of  a 
newly  equipped  narcotic  clinic  on  the  Bowery  below 
Canal  Street,  provided  to  medically  administer  to 
the  pathological  cravings  of  addicts. 

Fifteen  minutes  later  Alma  emerged  from  the 
Subway  at  Canal  Street,  and,  with  three  blocks 
toward  her  destination  ahead,  started  to  run. 

At  the  end  of  the  t  first  block  she  saw  her  mother, 
in  the  sable  coat  and  the  black-lace  hat,  coming 
toward  her. 

Her  first  impulse  was  to  run  faster  and  yoo-hoo, 
but  she  thought  better  of  it  and,  by  biting  her  lips 
and  digging  her  finger  nails,  was  able  to  slow  down 
to  a  casual  walk. 

Carrie's  fur  coat  was  flaring  open  and,  because  of 
the  quality  of  her  attire  down  there  where  the  bilge 
waters  of  the  city  tide  flow  and  eddy,  stares  followed 
her. 

Once,  to  the  stoppage  of  Alma's  heart,  she  saw 
Carrie  halt  and  say  a  brief  word  to  a  truckman  as 
he  crossed  the  sidewalk  with  a  bill  of  lading.  He 
hesitated,  laughed,  and  went  on. 

Then  she  quickened  her  pace  and  went  on,  but  as 
if  with  a  sense  of  being  followed,  because  constantly 
as  she  walked  she  jerked  a  step,  to  look  back,  and 
then  again,  over  her  shoulder. 

A  second  time  she  stopped,  this  time  to  address 
a  little  nub  of  a  woman  without  a  hat  and  lugging 

5* 


SHE   WALKS   IN   BEAUTY 

one-sidedly  a  stack  of  men's  basted  waistcoats,  evi 
dently  for  home  work  in  some  tenement.  She 
looked  and  muttered  her  un-understanding  at  what 
ever  Carrie  had  to  say,  and  shambled  on. 

Then  Mrs.  Latz  spied  her  daughter,  greeting  her 
without  surprise  or  any  particular  recognition. 

"Thought  you  could  fool  me!  Heh,  Louis? 
I  mean  Alma." 

"Mamma,  it's  Alma.  It's  all  right.  Don't  you 
remember,  we  had  this  appointment?  Come,  dear." 

"No,  you  don't!  That's  a  man  following.  Shh- 
h-h-h,  Louis!  I  was  fooling.  I  went  up  to  him 
in  the  clinic"  (snicker)  "and  I  said  to  him,  'Give 
you  five  dollars  for  a  doctor's  certificate.'  That's 
all  I  said  to  him,  or  any  of  them.  He's  in  a  white 
carnation,  Louis.  You  can  find  him  by  the — it  on 
his  coat  lapel.  He's  coming!  Quick — " 

"Mamma,  there's  no  one  following.  Wait,  I'll 
call  a  taxi!" 

"No,  you  don't!  He  tried  to  put  me  in  a  taxi, 
too.  No,  you  don't!" 

"Then  the  Subway,  dearest.  You'll  sit  quietly 
beside  Alma  in  the  Subway,  won't  you,  Carrie? 
Alma's  so  tired." 

Suddenly  Carrie  began  to  whimper. 

"My  baby!  Don't  let  her  see  me.  My  baby! 
What  am  I  good  for?  I've  ruined  her  life.  My  pre 
cious  sweetheart's  life.  I  hit  her  once — Louis — in  the 
mouth.  It  bled.  God  won't  forgive  me  for  that." 

"Yes,  He  will,  dear,  if  you  come." 

"It  bled.  Alma,  tell  him  in  the  white  carnation 
that  mamma  lost  her  doctor's  certificate.  That's  all 
I  said  to  him.  Saw  him  in  the  clinic — new  clinic — 

52 


SHE  WALKS   IN   BEAUTY 

'give  you  five  dollars  for  a  doctor's  certificate.'  He 
had  a  white  carnation — right  lapel.  Stingy.  Quick! 
— following!" 

" Sweetheart,  please,  there's  no  one  coming." 

"Don't  tell!  Oh,  Alma  darling — mamma's  ruined 
your  life!  Her  sweetheart  baby's  life." 

"No,  darling,  you  haven't.  She  loves  you  if 
you'll  come  home  with  her,  dear,  to  bed,  before  Louis 
gets  home  and — " 

"No.  No.  He  mustn't  see.  Never  this  bad — 
was  I,  darling?  Oh!  Oh!" 

"No,  mamma — never — this  bad.  That's  why  we 
must  hurry." 

"Best  man  that  ever  lived.  Best  baby.  Ruin. 
Ruin." 

"Mamma,  you — you're  making  Alma  tremble  so 
that  she  can  scarcely  walk  if  you  drag  her  so.  There's 
no  one  following,  dear.  I  won't  let  anyone  harm 
you.  Please,  sweetheart — a  taxicab." 

"No.  I  tell  you  he's  following.  He  tried  to  put 
me  into  a  taxicab.  Followed  me.  Said  he  knew 
me." 

"Then,  mamma,  listen.  Do  you  hear?  Alma 
wants  you  to  listen.  If  you  don't — she'll  faint. 
People  are  looking.  Now  I  want  you  to  turn  square 
around  and  look.  No,  look  again.  You  see  now, 
there's  no  one  following.  Now  I  want  you  to  cross 
the  street  over  there  to  the  Subway.  Just  with 
Alma  who  loves  you.  There's  nobody  following. 
Just  with  Alma  who  loves  you." 

And  then  Carrie,  whose  lace  hat  was  quite  on  the 
back  of  her  head,  relaxed  enough  so  that  through  the 
enormous  maze  of  the  traffic  of  trucks  and  the 

53 


SHE   WALKS   IN   BEAUTY 

heavier  drags  of  the  lower  city,  her  daughter  could 
wind  their  way. 

"My  baby!  My  poor  Louis !"  she  kept  saying. 
"The  worst  IVe  ever  been.  Oh — Alma — Louis — 
waiting — before  we  get  there — Louis!" 

It  was  in  the  tightest  tangle  of  the  crossing  and 
apparently  on  this  conjuring  of  her  husband  that 
Carrie  jerked  suddenly  free  of  Alma's  frailer  hold. 

"No — no — not  home — now.  Him.  Alma!"  And 
darted  back  against  the  breast  of  the  down  side  of 
the  traffic. 

There  was  scarcely  more  than  the  quick  rotation 
of  her  arm  around  with  the  spoke  of  a  truck  wheel, 
so  quickly  she  went  down. 

It  was  almost  a  miracle,  her  kind  of  death,  because 
out  of  all  that  jam  of  tonnage  she  carried  only  one 
bruise,  a  faint  one,  near  the  brow. 

And  the  wonder  was  that  Louis  Latz,  in  his  grief, 
was  so  proud. 

"To  think,"  he  kept  saying  over  and  over  again 
and  unabashed  at  the  way  his  face  twisted — "to 
think  they  should  have  happened  to  me.  Two  such 
women  in  one  lifetime  as  my  little  mother — and 
her.  Fat  little  old  Louis  to  have  had  those  two. 
Why,  just  the  memory  of  my  'Carrie — is  almost 
enough.  To  think  old  me  should  have  a  memory 
like  that — it  is  almost  enough — isn't  it,  Alma?" 

She  kissed  his  hand. 

That  very  same,  that  dreadful  night,  almost  with 
out  her  knowing  it,  her  throat-tearing  sobs  broke 
loose,  her  face  to  the  waistcoat  of  Leo  Fried- 
lander. 

He  held  her  close — very,  very  close. 

54 


SHE   WALKS   IN   BEAUTY 

"Why,  sweetheart,"  he  said,  "I  could  cut  out  my 
heart  to  help  you!  Why,  sweetheart!  Shh-h-h! 
Remember  what  Louis  says.  Just  the  beautiful 
memory — of — her — is — wonderful — ' ' 

"Just — the  b-beautiful — memory — you'll  always 
have  it,  too — of  her — my  mamma — won't  you,  Leo? 
Won't  you?" 

"Always,"  he  said  when  the  tight  grip  in  his 
throat  had  eased  enough. 

"Say — it  again — Leo." 

"Always." 

She  could  not  know  how  dear  she  became  to  him 
then,  because  not  ten  minutes  before,  from  the  very 
lapel  against  which  her  cheek  lay  pressed,  he  had 
unpinned  a  white  carnation. 


BACK    PAY 


BACK  PAY 

1SET  out  to  write  a  love  story,  and  for  the  purpose 
sharpened  a  bright-pink  pencil  with  a  glass  ruby 
frivolously  at  the  eraser  end. 

Something  sweet.  Something  dainty.  A  candied 
rose  leaf  after  all  the  bitter  war  lozenges.  A  miss. 
A  kiss.  A  golf  stick.  A  motor  car.  Or,  if  need  be, 
a  bit  of  khaki,  but  without  one  single  spot  of  blood 
or  mud,  and  nicely  pressed  as  to  those  fetching  peg- 
top  trouser  effects  where  they  wing  out  just  below 
the  skirt-coat.  The  oldest  story  in  the  world  told 
newly.  No  wear  out  to  it.  Editors  know.  It's  as 
staple  as  eggs  or  printed  lawn  or  ipecac.  The  good 
old-fashioned  love  story  with  the  above-mentioned 
miss,  kiss,  and,  if  need  be  for  the  sake  of  timeliness, 
the  bit  of  khaki,  pressed. 

Just  my  luck  that,  with  one  of  these  modish  tales 
at  the  tip  of  my  pink  pencil,  Hester  Bevins  should 
come  pounding  and  clamoring  at  the  door  of  my  men 
tal  reservation,  quite  drowning  out  the  rather  high, 
the  lipsy,  and,  if  I  do  say  it  myself,  distinctly  musi 
cal  patter  of  Arline.  That  was  to  have  been  her  name. 
Arline  Kildane.  Sweet,  don't  you  think,  and  with 
just  a  bit  of  wild  Irish  rose  in  it? 

But  Hester  Bevins  would  not  let  herself  be  gain 
said,  sobbing  a  little,  elbowing  her  way  through  the 
5  59 


BACK    PAY 

of  mental  unborns,  and  leaving  me  to  blow 
my  pitch  pipe  for  a  minor  key. 

Not  that  Hester's  isn't  one  of  the  oldest  stories  in 
the  world,  too.  No  matter  how  newly  told,  she  is  as 
old  as  sin,  and  sin  is  but  a  few  weeks  younger  than 
love — and  how  often  the  two  are  interchange 
able! 

If  it  be  a  fact  that  the  true  lady  is,  in  theory, 
either  a  virgin  or  a  lawful  wife,  then  Hester  Bevins 
stands  immediately  convicted  on  two  charges. 

She  was  neither.  The  most  that  can  be  said  for 
her  is  that  she  was  honestly  what  she  was. 

"If  the  wages  of  sin  is  death,"  she  said  to  a  road- 
house  party  of  roysterers  one  dawn,  "then  I've 
quite  a  bit  of  back  pay  coming  to  me."  And  joined 
in  the  shout  that  rose  off  the  table. 

I  can  sketch  her  in  for  you  rather  simply  because 
of  the  hackneyed  lines  of  her  very,  very  old  story. 
Whose  pasts  so  quickly  mold  and  disintegrate  as 
those  of  women  of  Hester's  stripe?  Their  yester 
days  are  entirely  soluble  in  the  easy  waters  of  their 
to-days. 

For  the  first  seventeen  years  of  her  life  she  lived 
in  what  we  might  call  Any  American  Town  of,  say, 
fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  inhabitants.  Her  par 
ticular  one  was  in  Ohio.  Demopolis,  I  think.  One 
of  those  change-engine-and-take-on-water  stops  with 
a  stucco  art-nouveau  station,  a  roof  drooping  all 
round  it,  as  if  it  needed  to  be  shaved  off  like  edges 
of  a  pie,  and  the  name  of  the  town  writ  in  conch 
shells  on  a  green  slant  of  terrace.  You  know — the 
kind  that  first  establishes  a  ten-o'clock  curfew  for 
its  young,  its  dance  halls  and  motion-picture  thea- 

60 


BACK    PAY 

ters,  and  then  sends  in  a  hurry  call  for  a  social- 
service  expert  from  one  of  the  large  Eastern  cities 
to  come  and  diagnose  its  malignant  vice  under 
growth. 

Hester  Bevins,  of  a  mother  who  died  bearing  her 
and  one  of  those  disappearing  fathers  who  can 
speed  away  after  the  accident  without  even  stopping 
to  pick  up  the  child  or  leave  a  license  number,  was 
reared — no,  grew  up,  is  better — in  the  home  of  an 
aunt.  A  blond  aunt  with  many  gold  teeth  and 
many  pink  and  blue  wrappers. 

Whatever  Hester  knew  of  the  kind  of  home  that 
fostered  her,  it  left  apparently  no  welt  across  her 
sensibilities.  It  was  a  rather  poor  house,  an  un- 
painted  frame  in  a  poor  street,  but  there  was  never 
a  lack  of  gayety  or,  for  that  matter,  any  pinching 
lack  of  funds.  It  was  an  actual  fact  that,  at  thir 
teen,  cotton  or  lisle  stockings  brought  out  a  little 
irritated  rash  on  Hester's  slim  young  legs,  and  she 
wore  silk.  Abominations,  it  is  true,  at  three  pair 
for  a  dollar,  that  sprang  runs  and  would  not  hold  a 
darn,  but,  just  the  same,  they  were  silk.  There  was 
an  air  of  easy  camaraderie  and  easy  money  about 
that  house.  It  was  not  unusual  for  her  to  come  home 
from  school  at  high  noon  and  find  a  front-room 
group  of  one,  two,  three,  or  four  guests,  almost 
invariably  men.  Frequently  these  guests  handed  her 
out  as  much  as  half  a  dollar  for  candy  money,  and 
not  another  child  in  school  reckoned  in  more  than 
pennies. 

Once  a  guest,  for  reasons  of  odd  change,  I  suppose, 
handed  her  out  thirteen  cents.  Outraged,  at  the 
meanness  of  the  sum,  and  with  an  early  and 

61 


BACK    PAY 

deep-dyed  superstition  of  thirteen,  she  dashed  the 
coins  out  of  his  hand  and  to  the  four  corners  of 
the  room,  escaping  in  the  guffaw  of  laughter  that 
went  up. 

Often  her  childish  sleep  in  a  small  top  room  with 
slanting  sides  would  be  broken  upon  by  loud  ribal 
dry  that  lasted  into  dawn,  but  never  by  word,  and 
certainly  not  by  deed,  was  she  to  know  from  her 
aunt  any  of  its  sordid  significance. 

Literally,  Hester  Bevins  was  left  to  feather  her 
own  nest.  There  were  no  demands  made  upon  her. 
Once,  in  the  little  atrocious  front  parlor  of  horse 
hair  and  chromo,  one  of  the  guests,  the  town  bag 
gage-master,  to  be  exact,  made  to  embrace  her, 
receiving  from  the  left  rear  a  sounding  smack  across 
cheek  and  ear  from  the  aunt. 

"Cut  that!  Hester,  go  out  and  play!  Whatever 
she's  got  to  learn  from  life,  she  can't  say  she  learned 
it  in  my  house." 

There  were  even  two  years  of  high  school,  and  at 
sixteen,  when  she  went,  at  her  own  volition,  to  clerk 
in  Finley's  two-story  department  store  on  High 
Street,  she  was  still  innocent,  although  she  and 
Gerald  Fishback  were  openly  sweethearts. 

Gerald  was  a  Thor.  Of  course,  you  are  not  to 
take  that  literally ;  but  if  ever  there  was  a  carnifica- 
tion  of  the  great  god  himself,  then  Gerald  was  in  his 
image.  A  wide  streak  of  the  Scandinavian  ran 
through  his  make-up,  although  he  had  been  born 
in  Middletown,  and  from  there  had  come  recently 
to  the  Finley  Dry  Goods  Company  as  an  ac 
countant. 

He  was  so  the  viking  in  his  bigness  that  once,  on 

62 


BACK    PAY 

a  picnic,  he  had  carried  two  girls,  screaming  their 
fun,  across  twenty  feet  of  stream.  Hester  was  one  of 
them. 

It  was  at  this  picnic,  the  Finley  annual,  that  he 
asked  Hester,  then  seventeen,  to  marry  him.  She 
was  darkly,  wildly  pretty,  as  a  rambler  rose  tugging 
at  its  stem  is  restlessly  pretty,  as  a  pointed  little 
gazelle  smelling  up  at  the  moon  is  whimsically 
pretty,  as  a  runaway  stream  from  off  the  flank  of  a 
river  is  naughtily  pretty,  and  she  wore  a  crisp  per 
cale  shirt  waist  with  a  saucy  bow  at  the  collar,  fifty- 
cent  silk  stockings,  and  already  she  had  almond 
incarnadine  nails  with  points  to  them. 

They  were  in  the  very  heart  of  Wallach's  Grove, 
under  a  natural  cathedral  of  trees,  the  noises  of  the 
revelers  and  the  small  explosions  of  soda-water  and 
beer  bottles  almost  remote  enough  for  perfect  quiet. 
He  was  stretched  his  full  and  splendid  length  at  the 
picknickers'  immemorial  business  of  plucking  and 
sucking  grass  blades,  and  she  seated  very  trimly, 
her  little  blue-serge  skirt  crawling  up  ever  so 
slightly  to  reveal  the  silken  ankle,  on  a  rock  beside 
him. 

1 '  Tickle-tickle !"  she  cried,  with  some  of  that 
irrepressible  animal  spirit  of  hers,  and  leaning  to 
brush  his  ear  with  a  twig. 

He  caught  at  her  hand. 

"Hester,"  he  said,  "marry  me." 

She  felt  a  foaming  through  her  until  her  finger  tips 
sang. 

"Well,  I  like  that!"  was  what  she  said,  though, 
and  flung  up  a  pointed  profile  that  was  like  that 
same  gazelle's  smelling  the  moon. 

63 


BACK    PAY 

He  was  very  darkly  red,  and  rose  to  his  knees  to 
clasp  her  about  the  waist.  She  felt  like  relaxing 
back  against  his  blondness  and  feeling  her  fingers 
plow  through  the  great  double  wave  of  his  hair. 
But  she  did  not. 

" You're  too  poor,"  she  said. 

He  sat  back  without  speaking  for  a  long  minute. 

"Money  isn't  everything,"  he  said,  finally,  and 
with  something  gone  from  his  voice. 

"I  know,"  she  said,  looking  off;  "but  it's  a  great 
deal  if  you  happen  to  want  it  more  than  anything 
else  in  the  world." 

"Then,  if  that's  how  you  feel  about  it,  Hester, 
next  to  wanting  you,  I  want  it,  too,  more  than  any 
thing  else  in  the  world." 

"There's  no  future  in  bookkeeping." 

"I  know  a  fellow  in  Cincinnati  who's  a  hundred- 
and-fifty-dollar  man.  Hester?  Dear?" 

"A  week?" 

"Why,  of  course  not,  dear — a  month!" 

"Faugh!"  she  said,  still  looking  off. 

He  felt  out  for  her  hand,  at  the  touch  of  her  red 
dening  up  again. 

"Hester,"  he  said,  "you're  the  most  beautiful, 
the  most  exciting,  the  most  maddening,  the  most — 
the  most  everything  girl  in  the  world!  You're  not 
going  to  have  an  easy  time  of  it,  Hester,  with  your 
— your  environment  and  your  dangerousness,  if  you 
don't  settle  down — quick,  with  some  strong  fellow 
to  take  care  of  you.  A  fellow  who  loves  you.  That's 
me,  Hester.  I  want  to  make  a  little  home  for  you 
and  protect  you.  I  can't  promise  you  the  money — 

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BACK    PAY 

right  off,  but  I  can  promise  you  the  bigger  some 
thing  from  the  very  start,  Hester.     Dear?" 

She  would  not  let  her  hand  relax  to  his. 

"I  hate  this  town,"  she  said. 

"There's  Cincinnati.  Maybe  my  friend  could 
find  an  opening  there." 

"Faugh!" 

"Cincinnati,  dear,  is  a  metropolis." 

"No,  no!  You  don't  understand.  I  hate  little 
ness.  Even  little  metropolises.  Cheapness.  I  hate 
little  towns  and  little  spenders  and  mercerized  stock 
ings  and  cotton  lisle  next  to  my  skin,  and  machine- 
stitched  nightgowns.  Ugh!  it  scratches!" 

"And  I — I  just  love  you  in  those  starchy  white 
shirt  waists,  Hester.  You're  beautiful." 

"That's  just  the  trouble.  It  satisfies  you,  but  it 
suffocates  me.  I've  got  a  pink-crepe-de-Chine  soul. 
Pink  crepe  de  Chine — you  hear?" 

He  sat  back  on  his  heels. 

"It —  Is  it  true,  then,  Hester  that — that  you're 
making  up  with  that  salesman  from  New  York?" 

"Why,"  she  said,  coloring — "why,  I've  only  met 
him  twice  walking  up  High  Street,  evenings!" 

"But  it  is  true,  isn't  it,  Hester?" 

"Say,  who  was  answering  your  questions  this 
time  last  year?" 

"But  it  is  true,  isn't  it,  Hester?    Isn't  it?" 

"Well,  of  all  the  nerve!" 

But  it  was. 

The  rest  tells  glibly.  The  salesman,  who  wore 
blue-and-white-striped  soft  collars  with  a  bar  pin 

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BACK    PAY 

across  the  front,  does  not  even  enter  the  story.  He 
was  only  a  stepping-stone.  From  him  the  ascent  or 
descent,  or  whatever  you  choose  to  call  it,  was 
quick  and  sheer. 

Five  years  later  Hester  was  the  very  private,  the 
very  exotic,  manicured,  coiffured,  scented,  svelted, 
and  strictly  de-luxe  chattel  of  one  Charles  G.  Wheeler, 
of  New  York  City  and  Rosencranz,  Long  Island, 
vice-president  of  the  Standard  Tractor  Company,  a 
member  of  no  clubs  but  of  the  Rosencranz  church, 
three  lodges,  and  several  corporations. 

You  see,  there  is  no  obvious  detail  lacking.  Yes, 
there  was  an  apartment.  "Flat"  it  becomes  under 
their  kind  of  tenancy,  situated  on  the  windiest  bend 
of  Riverside  Drive  and  minutely  true  to  type  from 
the  pale-blue  and  brocade  vernis-Martin  parlor  of 
talking-machine,  mechanical  piano,  and  cellarette 
built  to  simulate  a  music  cabinet,  to  the  pink- 
brocaded  bedroom  with  a  chaise-longue  piled  high 
with  a  small  mountain  of  lace  pillowettes  that  were 
liberally  interlarded  with  paper-bound  novels,  and  a 
spacious,  white-marble  adjoining  bathroom  with  a 
sunken  tub,  rubber-sheeted  shower,  white-enamel 
weighing  scales,  and  overloaded  medicine  chest  of 
cosmetic  array  in  frosted  bottles,  sleeping-,  head 
ache-,  sedative  powders,  et  al.  There  were  also  a 
negro  maid,  two  Pomeranian  dogs,  and  last,  but  by 
no  means  least,  a  private  telephone  inclosed  in  a  hall 
closet  and  lighted  by  an  electric  bulb  that  turned  on 
automatically  to  the  opening  of  the  door. 

There  was  nothing  sinister  about  Wheeler.  He 
was  a  rather  fair  exponent  of  that  amazing  genus 
as  "typical  New-Yorker,"  a  roll  of  money 


BACK    PAY 

in  his  pocket,  and  a  roll  of  fat  at  the  back  of  his 
neck.  He  went  in  for  light  checked  suits,  wore  a 
platinum-and-Oriental-pearl  chain  across  his  waist 
coat,  and  slept  at  a  Turkish  bath  once  a  week;  was 
once  named  in  a  large  corporation  scandal,  escaping 
indictment  only  after  violent  and  expensive  skir 
mishes;  could  be  either  savage  or  familiar  with 
waiters;  wore  highly  manicured  nails,  which  he 
regarded  frequently  in  public,  white-silk  socks  only; 
and  maintained,  on  a  twenty-thousand-a-year  scale 
in  the  decorous  suburb  of  Rosencranz,  a  decorous 
wife  and  three  children,  and,  like  all  men  of  his  code, 
his  ethics  were  strictly  double  decked.  He  would 
not  permit  his  nineteen-year-old  daughter  Marion  so 
much  as  a  shopping  tour  to  the  city  without  the 
chaperonage  of  her  mother  or  a  friend,  forbade  in 
his  wife,  a  comely  enough  woman  with  a  white 
unmarcelled  coiffure  and  upper  arms  a  bit  baggy 
with  withering  flesh,  even  the  slightest  of  shirt 
waist  V's  unless  filled  in  with  net,  and  kept  up,  at 
an  expense  of  no  less  than  fifteen  thousand  a  year — 
thirty  the  war  year  that  tractors  jumped  into  the 
war-industry  class — the  very  high-priced,  -tempered, 
-handed,  and  -stepping  Hester  of  wild-gazelle  charm. 

Not  that  Hester  stepped  much.  There  were  a 
long  underslung  roadster  and  a  great  tan  limousine 
with  yellow-silk  curtains  at  the  call  of  her  private 
telephone. 

The  Wheeler  family  used,  not  without  complaint, 
a  large  open  car  of  very  early  vintage,  which  in 
winter  was  shut  in  with  flapping  curtains  with  isin 
glass  peepers,  and  leaked  cold  air  badly. 

On  more  than  one  occasion  they  passed  on  the 


BACK    PAY 

road — these  cars.  The  long  tan  limousine  with  the 
shock  absorbers,  foot  warmers,  two  brown  Pomer 
anian  dogs,  little  case  of  enamel- top  bottles,  fresh 
flowers,  and  outside  this  little  jewel-case  interior, 
smartly  exposed,  so  that  the  blast  hit  him  from  all 
sides,  a  chauffeur  in  uniform  that  harmonized 
nicely  with  the  tans  and  yellows.  And  then  the 
grotesque  caravan  of  the  Azoic  motor  age,  with  its 
flapping  curtains  and  ununiformed  youth  in  visored 
cap  at  the  wheel. 

There  is  undoubtedly  an  unsavory  aspect  to  this 
story.  For  purpose  of  fiction,  it  is  neither  fragrant 
nor  easily  digested.  But  it  is  not  so  unsavory  as  the 
social  scheme  which  made  it  possible  for  those  two 
cars  to  pass  thus  on  the  road,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
Charles  G.  Wheeler  to  remain  the  unchallenged 
member  of  the  three  lodges,  the  corporations,  and 
the  Rosencranz  church,  with  a  memorial  window  in 
his  name  on  the  left  side  as  you  enter,  and  again 
his  name  spelled  out  on  a  brass  plate  at  the  end  of  a 
front  pew. 

No  one  but  God  and  Mrs.  Wheeler  knew  what 
was  in  her  heart.  It  is  possible  that  she  did  not 
know  what  the  world  knew,  but  hardly.  That  she 
endured  it  is  not  admirable,  but  then  there  were  the 
three  children,  and,  besides,  she  lived  in  a  world 
that  let  it  go  at  that.  And  so  she  continued  to  hold 
up  her  head  in  her  rather  poor,  mute  way,  rode  beside 
her  husband  to  funerals,  weddings,  and  to  the  college 
Commencement  of  their  son  at  Yale.  Scrimped  a 
little,  cried  a  little,  prayed  a  little  in  private,  but  out 
wardly  lived  the  life  of  the  smug  in  body  and  soul. 

But  the  Wheelers'  is  another  story,  also  a  running 

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social  sore;  but  it  was  Hester,  you  remember,  who 
came  sobbing  and  clamoring  to  be  told. 

As  Wheeler  once  said  of  her,  she  was  a  darn  fine 
clothes  horse.  There  was  no  pushed-up  line  of  flesh 
across  the  middle  of  her  back,  as  the  corsets  did  it 
to  Mrs.  Wheeler.  She  was  honed  to  the  ounce.  The 
white-enameled  weighing  scales,  the  sweet  oils,  the 
flexible  fingers  of  her  masseur,  the  dumb-bells,  the 
cabinet,  salt-water,  needle-spray,  and  vapor  baths 
saw  to  that.  Her  skin,  unlike  Marion  Wheeler's, 
was  unfreckled,  and  as  heavily  and  tropically  white 
as  a  magnolia  leaf,  and,  of  course,  she  reddened  her 
lips,  and  the  moonlike  pallor  came  out  more  than 
ever. 

As  I  said,  she  was  frankly  what  she  was.  No 
man  looked  at  her  more  than  once  without  knowing 
it.  To  use  an  awkward  metaphor,  it  was  before  her 
face  like  an  overtone;  it  was  an  invisible  caul. 
The  wells  of  her  eyes  were  muddy  with  it. 

But  withal,  she  commanded  something  of  a 
manner,  even  from  Wheeler.  He  had  no  key  to  the 
apartment.  He  never  entered  her  room  without 
knocking.  There  were  certain  of  his  friends  she 
would  not  tolerate,  from  one  or  another  aversion, 
to  be  party  to  their  not  infrequent  carousals.  Men 
did  not  always  rise  from  their  chairs  when  she 
entered  a  room,  but  she  suffered  few  liberties  from 
them.  She  was  absolutely  indomitable  in  her 
demands. 

"Lord!"  ventured  Wheeler,  upon  occasion,  across 
a  Sunday-noon,  lace-spread  breakfast  table,  when 
she  was  slim  and  cool  fingered  in  orchid-colored 
draperies,  and  his  newest  gift  of  a  six-carat,  pear- 

69 


BACK    PAY 

shaped  diamond  blazing  away  on  her  right  hand. 
"Say,  aren't  these  Yvette  bills  pretty  steep? 

"One  midnight-blue-and-silver  gown $485.00 

One  blue-and-silver  head  bandeau 50 .  oo 

One  serge-and-satin  trotteur  gown 275 .00 

One  ciel-blue  tea  gown 280 .  oo 

' '  Is  that  the  cheapest  you  can  drink  tea  ?    Whew ! ' ' 

She  put  down  her  coffee  cup,  which  she  usually 
held  with  one  little  finger  poised  elegantly  outward 
as  if  for  flight. 

"You've  got  a  nerve!"  she  said,  rising  and  pushing 
back  her  chair.  "Over  whose  ticker  are  you  getting 
quotations  that  I  come  cheap?" 

He  was  immediately  conciliatory,  rising  also 
to  enfold  her  in  an  embrace  that  easily  held  her 
slightness. 

"Go  on,"  he  said.  "You  could  work  me  for  the 
Woolworth  Building  in  diamonds  if  you  wanted  it 
badly  enough." 

"Funny  way  of  showing  it!  I  may  be  a  lot  of 
things,  Wheeler,  but  I'm  not  cheap.  You're  darn 
lucky  that  the  war  is  on  and  I'm  not  asking  for  a 
French  car." 

He  crushed  his  lips  to  hers. 

"You  devil!"  he  said. 

There  were  frequent  parties.  Dancing  at  Broad 
way  cabarets,  all-night  joy  rides,  punctuated  with 
road-house  stop-overs,  and  not  infrequently,  in 
groups  of  three  or  four  couples,  ten-day  pilgrimages 
to  showy  American  spas. 

"Getting  boiled  out,"  they  called  it.  It  was  part 
of  Hester's  scheme  for  keeping  her  sveltness. 

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Her  friendships  were  necessarily  rather  confined 
to  a  definite  circle — within  her  own  apartment  house, 
in  fact.  On  the  floor  above,  also  in  large,  bright 
rooms  of  high  rental,  and  so  that  they  were  exchang 
ing  visits  frequently  during  the  day,  often  en  dis 
habille,  using  the  stairway  that  wound  up  round  the 
elevator  shaft,  lived  a  certain  Mrs.  Kitty  Drew,  I 
believe  she  called  herself.  She  was  plump  and 
blond,  and  so  very  scented  that  her  aroma  lay  on  a 
hallway  for  an  hour  after  she  had  scurried  through 
it.  She  was  well  known  and  chiefly  distinguished 
by  a  large  court-plaster  crescent  which  she  wore  on 
her  left  shoulder  blade.  She  enjoyed  the  bounty  of 
a  Wall  Street  broker  who  for  one  day  had  attained 
the  conspicuousness  of  cornering  the  egg  market. 

There  were  two  or  three  others  within  this  group. 
A  Mrs.  Denison,  half  French,  and  a  younger  girl 
called  Babe.  But  Mrs.  Drew  and  Hester  were 
intimates.  They  dwaddled  daily  in  one  or  the  other's 
apartment,  usually  lazy  and  lacy  with  neglig6e, 
lounging  about  on  the  mounds  of  lingerie  pillows 
over  chocolates,  cigarettes,  novels,  Pomeranians, 
and  always  the  headache  powders,  nerve  sedatives, 
or  smelling  salts,  a  running  line  of:  "Lord!  I've  a 
head!"  "I  need  a  good  cry  for  the  blues !"  "Talk 
about  a  dark-brown  taste!"  or,  "There  was  some 
kick  to  those  cocktails  last  night,"  through  their 
conversation. 

KITTY :   ' '  Br-r-r !    I'm  as  nervous  as  a  cat  to-day." 

HESTER:  "Naughty,  naughty  bad  doggie  to  bite 
muvver's  diamond  ring." 

KITTY:  "Leave  it  to  you  to  land  a  pear-shaped 
diamond  on  your  hooks." 

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HESTER:   "He  fell  for  it,  just  like  that!" 

KITTY:   "You  could  milk  a  billiard  ball." 

HESTER:  "I  don't  see  any  'quality  of  mercy'  to 
spare  around  your  flat." 

There  were  the  two  years  of  high  school,  you  see. 

"Ed's  going  out  to  Geyser  Springs  next  month  for 
the  cure.  I  told  him  he  could  not  go  without  me 
unless  over  my  dead  body,  he  could  not." 

"Geyser  Springs.  That's  thirty  miles  from  my 
home  town." 

"Your  home  town?  Nighty-night!  I  thought 
you  was  born  on  the  corner  of  Forty -second  Street 
and  Broadway  with  a  lobster  claw  in  your  mouth." 

"Demopolis,  Ohio." 

"What  is  that— a  skin  disease?" 
t  "My  last  relation  in  the  world  died  out  there  two 
years  ago.    An  aunt.    Wouldn't  mind  some  Geyser 
Springs  myself  if  I  could  get  some  of  this  stiffness  out 
of  my  joints." 

' '  Come  on !  I  dare  you !  May  Denison  and  Chris 
will  come  in  on  it,  and  Babe  can  always  find  some 
body.  Make  it  three  or  four  cars  full  and  let's  motor 
out.  We  all  need  a  good  boiling,  anyways.  Wheeler 
looks  about  ready  for  spontaneous  combustion,  and 
I  got  a  twinge  in  my  left  little  toe.  You  on  ? " 

"lam,  if  he  is." 

" '  If  he  is ! '  He'd  fall  for  life  in  an  Igorrote  village 
with  a  ring  in  his  nose  if  you  wanted  it." 

And  truly  enough,  it  did  come  about  that  on  a 
height-of-the-season  evening  a  highly  cosmopolitan 
party  of  four  couples  trooped  into  the  solid-marble 
foyer  of  the  Geyser  Springs  Hotel,  motor  coated, 
goggled,  veiled;  a  whole  litter  of  pigskin  and  patent- 

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BACK    PAY 

leather  bags,  hampers,  and  hat  boxes,  two  golf  bags, 
two  Pomeranians,  a  bull  in  spiked  collar,  furs,  leather 
coats,  monogrammed  rugs,  thermos  bottles,  air 
pillows,  robes,  and  an  ensemble  of  fourteen  wardrobe 
trunks  sent  by  express. 

They  took  the  ''cure."  Rode  horseback,  motored, 
played  roulette  at  the  casino  for  big  stakes,  and 
scorned  the  American  plan  of  service  for  the 
smarter  European  idea,  with  a  special  &  la  carte 
menu  for  each  meal.  Extraordinary-looking  mixed 
drinks,  strictly  against  the  mandates  of  the  "cure," 
appeared  at  their  table.  Strange  midnight  goings- 
on  were  reported  by  the  more  conservative  hotel 
guests,  and  the  privacy  of  their  circle  was  allowed 
full  integrity  by  the  little  veranda  groups  of 
gouty  ladies  or  middle-aged  husbands  with  liver 
spots  on  their  faces.  The  bath  attendants  reveled 
in  the  largest  tips  of  the  season.  When  Hester 
walked  down  the  large  dining  room  evenings,  she 
was  a  signal  for  the  craning  of  necks  for  the  newest 
shock  of  her  newest  extreme  toilette.  The  kinds  of 
toilettes  that  shocked  the  women  into  envy  and 
mental  notes  of  how  the  underarm  was  cut,  and  the 
men  into  covert  delight.  Wheeler  liked  to  sit  back 
and  put  her  through  her  paces  like  a  high-strung  filly. 
"Make  'em  sit  up,  girl!  You  got  them  all  looking 
like  dimes  around  here." 

One  night  she  descended  to  the  dining  room  in  a 
black  evening  gown  so  daringly  lacking  in  back, 
and  yet,  withal,  so  slimly  perfect  an  elegant  thing, 
that  an  actual  breathlessness  hung  over  the  hall, 
the  clatter  of  dishes  pausing. 

There  was  a  gold  bird  of  paradise  dipped  down  her 

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BACK    PAY 

hair  over  one  shoulder,  trailing  its  smoothness  like 
fingers  of  lace.    She  defied  with  it  as  she  walked. 

"Take  it  from  me,"  said  Kitty,  who  felt  fat  in 
lavender  that  night,  "she's  going  it  one  too  strong." 

Another  evening  she  descended,  always  last,  in  a 
cloth  of  silver  with  a  tiny,  an  absurd,  an  impeccably 
tight  silver  turban  dipped  down  over  one  eye,  and 
absolutely  devoid  of  jewels  except  the  pear-shaped 
diamond  on  her  left  forefinger. 

They  were  a  noisy,  a  spending,  a  cosmopolitan 
crowd  of  too-well-fed  men-  and  too-well-groomed 
women,  ignored  by  the  veranda  groups  of  wives  and 
mothers,  openly  dazzling  and  arousing  a  tremendous 
curiosity  in  the  younger  set,  and  quite  obviously 
sought  after  by  their  own  kind. 

But  Hester's  world,  too,  is  all  run  through  with 
sharply  defined  social  schisms. 

"I  wish  that  Irwin  woman  wouldn't  always  hang 
round  our  crowd,"  she  said,  one  morning,  as  she  and 
Kitty  lay  side  by  side  in  the  cooling  room  after  their 
baths,  massages,  manicures,  and  shampoos.  "I 
don't  want  to  be  seen  running  with  her." 

"Did  you  see  the  square  emerald  she  wore  last 
night?" 

"Fake.  I  know  the  clerk  at  the  Synthetic  Jewelry 
Company  had  it  made  up  for  her.  She's  cheap,  I 
tell  you.  Promiscuous.  Who  ever  heard  of  anybody 
standing  back  of  her  ?  She  knocks  around.  She  sells 
her  old  clothes  to  Tessie,  my  manicurist.  I've  got  a 
line  on  her.  She's  cheap." 

Kitty,  who  lay  with  her  face  under  a  white  mud 
of  cold  cream  and  her  little  mouth  merely  a  hole, 
turned  on  her  elbow. 

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BACK    PAY 

"We  can't  all  be  top-notchers,  Hester,"  she  said. 
"You're  hard  as  nails." 

"I  guess  I  am,  but  you've  got  to  be  to  play  this 
game.  The  ones  who  aren't  end  up  by  stuffing  the 
keyhole  and  turning  on  the  gas.  You've  got  to  play 
it  hard  or  not  at  all.  If  you've  got  the  name,  you 
might  as  well  have  the  game." 

"If  I  had  it  to  do  over  again — well,  there  would 
be  one  more  wife-and-mother  role  being  played  in 
this  little  old  world,  even  if  I  had  to  play  it  on  a 
South  Dakota  farm." 

"'Whatever  is  worth  doing  is  worth  doing  well,' 
I  used  to  write  in  a  copy  book.  Well,  that's  the  way 
I  feel  about  this.  To  me,  anything  is  worth  doing 
to  escape  the  cotton  stockings  and  lisle  next  to  your 
skin.  I  admit  I  never  sit  down  and  think.  You 
know,  sit  down  and  take  stock  of  myself.  What's 
the  use  thinking?  Live!  Yes,"  mused  Hester,  her 
arms  in  a  wreath  over  her  head,  "I  think  I'd  do  it 
all  over  again.  There's  not  been  so  many,  at  that. 
Three.  The  first  was  a  salesman.  He'd  have  mar 
ried  me,  but  I  couldn't  see  it  on  six  thousand  a  year. 
Nice  fellow,  too — an  easy  spender  in  a  small  way, 
but  I  couldn't  see  a  future  to  ladies'  neckwear. 
I  hear  he  made  good  later  in  munitions.  Al  was  a 
pretty  good  sort,  too,  but  tight.  How  I  hate  tight 
ness  !  I've  been  pretty  lucky  in  the  long  run,  I  guess." 

"Did  I  say  'hard  as  nails'?"  said  Kitty,  gro 
tesquely  fitting  a  cigarette  in  the  aperture  of  her 
mouth.  "I  apologize.  Why,  alongside  of  you  a 
piece  of  flint  is  morning  cereal.  Haven't  you  ever 
had  a  love  affair?  I've  been  married  twice — that's 
how  chicken  hearted  I  can  be.  Haven't  you  ever 
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BACK    PAY 

pumped  a  little  faster  just  because  a  certain  some 
one  walked  into  the  room?" 

"Once." 

"Once  what?" 

"I  liked  a  fellow.  Pretty  much.  A  blond.  Say, 
he  was  blond!  I  always  think  to  myself,  Kit,  next 
to  Gerald,  you've  got  the  bluest  eyes  under  heaven. 
Only,  his  didn't  have  any  dregs." 

" Thanks,  dearie." 

"I  sometimes  wonder  about  Gerald.  I  ought  to 
drive  over  while  we're  out  here.  Poor  old  Gerald 
Fishback!" 

"Sweet  name — 'Fishback.'  No  wonder  you  went 
wrong,  dearie." 

* ' Oh,  I'm  not  getting  soft.  I  saw  my  bed  and  made 
it,  nice  and  soft  and  comfy,  and  I'm  lying  on  it 
without  a  whimper." 

"You  just  bet  your  life  you  made  it  up  nice  and 
comfy !  You've  the  right  idea ;  I  have  to  hand  that 
to  you.  You  command  respect  from  them.  Lord! 
Ed  would  as  soon  fire  a  teacup  at  me  as  not.  But, 
with  me,  it  pays.  The  last  one  he  broke  he  made  up 
to  me  with  my  opal-and-diamond  beetle." 

"Wouldn't  wear  an  opal  if  it  was  set  next  to  the 
Hope  diamond." 

' '  Superstitious,  dearie  ? ' ' 

"Unlucky.    Never  knew  it  to  fail." 

"Not  a  superstition  in  my  bones.  I  don't  believe 
in  walking  under  ladders  or  opening  an  umbrella  in 
the  house  or  sitting  down  with  thirteen,  but,  Lordy ! 
never  saw  the  like  with  you!  Thought  you'd  have 
the  hysterics  over  that  little  old  vanity  mirror  you 
broke  that  day  out  at  the  races." 

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BACK    PAY 

"Br-r-r!    I  hated  it." 

"Lay  easy,  dearie.  Nothing  can  touch  you  the 
way  he's  raking  in  the  war  contracts." 

"Great— isn't  it?" 

"Play  for  a  country  home,  dearie.  I  always  say 
real  estate  and  jewelry  are  something  in  the  hand. 
Look  ahead  in  this  game,  I  always  say." 

"You  just  bet  I've  looked  ahead." 

"So  have  I,  but  not  enough." 

"Somehow,  I  never  feel  afraid.  I  could  get  a  job 
to-morrow  if  I  had  to." 

"Say,  dearie,  if  it  comes  to  that,  with  twenty 
pounds  off  me,  there's  not  a  chorus  I  couldn't  land 
back  in." 

"I  worked  once,  you  know,  in  Lichtig's  import 
shop." 

"Fifth  A  venue?" 

"Yes.  It  was  in  between  the  salesman  and  Al. 
I  sold  two  thousand  five  hundred  dollars'  worth  of 
gowns  the  first  week." 

"Sure  enough?" 

"Girl,'  old  man  Lichtig  said  to  me  the  day  I 
quit — 'girl,'  he  said,  'if  ever  you  need  this  job  again, 
comeback;  it's  waiting.'" 

"Fine  chance!" 

"I've  got  the  last  twenty -five  dollars  I  earned 
pinned  away  this  minute  in  the  pocket  of  the  little 
dark-blue  suit  I  wore  to  work.  I  paid  for  that  suit 
with  my  first  month's  savings.  A  little  dark-blue 
Norfolk,  Lichtig  let  me  have  out  of  stock  for  twenty- 
seven  fifty." 

"Were  they  giving  them  away  with  a  pound  of 
tea?" 

77 


BACK    PAY 

"Honest,  Kitty,  it  was  neat.  Little  white  shirt 
waist,  tan  shoes,  and  one  of  those  slick  little  five- 
dollar  sailors,  and  every  cent  paid  out  of  my  salary. 
I  could  step  into  that  outfit  to-morrow,  look  the  part, 
and  land  back  that  job  or  any  other.  I  had  a  way 
with  the  trade,  even  back  at  Finley's." 

"Here,  hold  my  jewel  bag,  honey;  I'm  going  to 
die  of  cold-cream  suffocation  if  she  don't  soon  come 
back  and  unsmear  me." 

"Opal  beetle  in  it?" 

"Yes,  dearie;  but  it  won't  bite.  It's  muzzled 
with  my  diamond  horseshoe." 

"Nothing  doing,  Kit.    Put  it  under  your  pillow." 

"You  better  watch  out.  There's  a  thirteenth 
letter  in  the  alphabet;  you  might  accidentally  use 
it  some  day.  You're  going  to  have  a  sweet  time  to 
night,  you  are!" 

"Why?" 

"The  boys  have  engaged  De  Butera  to  come  up 
to  the  rooms." 

"You  mean  the  fortune  teller  over  at  the  Stag 
Hotel?" 

"She's  not  a  fortune  teller,  you  poor  nervous 
wreck.  She's  the  highest-priced  spiritualist  in  the 
world.  Moving  tables — spooks — woof!" 

"Faugh!"  said  Hester,  rising  from  her  couch  and 
feeling  with  her  little  bare  feet  for  the  daintiest  of 
pink-silk  mules.  "I  could  make  tables  move,  too, 
at  forty  dollars  an  hour.  Where's  my  attendant? 
I  want  an  alcohol  rub." 

They  did  hold  seance  that  night  in  a  fine  spirit  of 
lark,  huddled  together  in  the  de-luxe  sitting  room  of 
one  of  their  suites,  and  little  half -hysterical  shrieks 

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BACK    PAY 

and  much  promiscuous  ribaldry  under  cover  of 
darkness. 

Madame  de  Butera  was  of  a  distinctly  fat  and 
earthy  blondness,  with  a  coarse-lace  waist  over  pink, 
and  short  hands  covered  with  turquoise  rings  of 
many  shapes  and  blues. 

Tables  moved.  A  dead  sister  of  Wheeler's  spoke 
in  thin,  high  voice.  Why  is  it  the  dead  are  always 
so  vocally  thin  and  high? 

A  chair  tilted  itself  on  hind  legs,  eliciting  squeals 
from  the  women.  Babe  spoke  with  a  gentleman 
friend  long  since  passed  on,  and  Kitty  with  a  deceased 
husband,  and  began  to  cry  quite  sobbily  and  took 
little  sips  of  highball  quite  gulpily.  May  Denison, 
who  was  openly  defiant,  allowed  herself  to  be  hyp 
notized  and  lay  rigid  between  two  chairs,  and  Kitty 
went  off  into  rampant  hysteria  until  Wheeler  finally 
placed  a  hundred-dollar  bill  over  the  closed  eyes, 
and  whether  under  it,  or  to  the  legerdemain  of 
madam's  manipulating  hands,  the  tight  eyes  opened, 
May,  amid  riots  of  laughter,  claiming  for  herself  the 
hundred-dollar  bill,  and  Kitty,  quite  resuscitated, 
jumping  up  for  a  table  cancan,  her  yellow  hair  tum 
bling,  and  her  china-blue  eyes  with  the  dregs  in 
them  inclined  to  water. 

All  but  Hester.  She  sat  off  by  herself  in  a  pea 
cock-colored  gown  that  wrapped  her  body  suavity 
as  if  the  fabric  were  soaking  wet,  a  band  of  smoky 
blue  about  her  forehead.  Never  intoxicated,  a 
slight  amount  of  alcohol  had  a  tendency  to  make 
her  morose. 

"What's  the  matter,  Cleo?"  asked  Wheeler, 
sitting  down  beside  her  and  lifting  her  cool  fingers 

79 


BACK    PAY 

one  by  one,  and,  by  reason  of  some  remote  analogy 
that  must  have  stirred  within  him,  seeing  in  her  a 
Nile  queen.  " What's  the  matter  Cleo?  Does  the 
spook  stuff  get  your  goat?" 

She  turned  on  him  eyes  that  were  all  troubled  up, 
like  waters  suddenly  wind-blown. 

"God!"  she  said,  her  fingers,  nails  inward,  closing 
about  his  arm.  "Wheeler — can — can  the — dead — 
speak?" 

But  fleeting  as  the  hours  themselves  were  the 
moods  of  them  all,  and  the  following  morning  there 
they  were,  the  eight  of  them,  light  with  laughter 
and  caparisoned  again  as  to  hampers,  veils,  coats, 
dogs,  off  for  a  day's  motoring  through  the  spring 
time  countryside. 

"Where  to?"  shouted  Wheeler,  twisting  from 
where  he  and  Hester  sat  in  the  first  of  the  cars  to 
call  to  the  two  motor -loads  behind. 

"I  thought  Crystal  Cave  was  the  spot" — from 
May  Denison  in  the  last  of  the  cars,  winding  her 
head  in  a  scarlet  veil. 

"Crystal  Cave  it  is,  then." 

"Is  that  through  Demopolis?" 

Followed  a  scanning  of  maps. 

"Sure!  Here  it  is!  See!  Granite  City.  Mitchell. 
Demopolis.  Crystal  Cave." 

"Good  Lord!  Hester,  you're  not  going  to  spend 
any  time  in  that  dump?" 

"It's  my  home  town,"  she  replied,  coldly.  "The 
only  relation  I  had  is  buried  there.  It's  nothing  out 
of  your  way  to  drop  me  on  the  court-house  steps 
and  pick  me  up  as  you  drive  back.  I've  been 
wanting  to  get  there  ever  since  we're  down  here. 

80 


BACK    PAY 

Wanting  to  stop  by  your  home  town  you  haven't 
seen  in  five  years  isn't  unreasonable,  is  it?" 

He  admitted  it  wasn't,  leaning  to  kiss  her. 

She  turned  to  him  a  face  soft,  with  one  of  the 
pouts  he  usually  found  irresistible. 

''Honey,"  she  said,  "what  do  you  think?" 

"What?" 

"Chris  is  buying  May  that  chinchilla  coat  I 
showed  you  in  Meyerbloom's  window  the  day  before 
we  left." 

"The  deuce  he  is!"  he  said,  letting  go  of  her  hand, 
but  hers  immediately  covering  his. 

"She's  wiring  her  sister  in  the  'Girlie  Revue'  to  go 
in  and  buy  it  for  her." 

"Outrage — fifteen  thousand  dollars  to  cover  a 
woman's  back!  Look  at  the  beautiful  scenery, 
honey!  You're  always  prating  about  views.  Look 
at  those  hills  over  there!  Great — isn't  it?" 

"I  wouldn't  expect  it,  Wheeler,  if  it  wasn't  war 
year  and  you  landing  one  big  contract  after  another. 
I'd  hate  to  see  May  show  herself  in  that  chinchilla 
coat  when  we  could  beat  her  to  it  by  a  wire.  I  could 
telegraph  Meyerbloom  himself.  I  bought  the  sable 
rug  of  him.  I'd  hate  it,  Wheeler,  to  see  her  and 
Chris  beat  us  to  it.  So  would  you.  What's  fifteen 
thousand  when  one  of  your  contracts  alone  runs 
into  the  hundred  thousands?  Honey?" 

"Wire,"  he  said,  sourly,  but  not  withdrawing  his 
hand  from  hers. 

They  left  her  at  the  shady  court-house  steps  in 
Demopolis,  but  with  pleasantry  and  gibe. 
"Give  my  love  to  the  town  pump." 

81 


BACK    PAY 

"Rush  the  old  oaken  growler  for  me.'* 

"So  long!"  she  called,  eager  to  be  rid  of  them. 
"Pick  me  up  at  six  sharp." 

She  walked  slowly  up  High  Street.  Passers-by 
turned  to  stare,  but  otherwise  she  was  unrecognized. 
There  was  a  new  five-and-ten-cent  store,  and  Finley 
Brothers  had  added  an  ell.  High  Street  was  paved. 
She  made  a  foray  down  into  the  little  side  street 
where  she  had  spent  those  queerly  remote  first 
seventeen  years  of  her  life.  How  dim  her  aunt 
seemed !  The  little  unpainted  frame  house  was  gone. 
There  was  a  lumber  yard  on  the  site.  Everything 
seemed  to  have  shrunk.  The  street  was  narrower 
and  dirtier  than  she  recalled  it. 

She  made  one  stop,  at  the  house  of  Maggie  Simms, 
a  high-school  chum.  It  was  a  frame  house,  too,  and 
she  remembered  that  the  front  door  opened  directly 
into  the  parlor  and  the  side  entrance  was  popularly 
used  instead.  But  a  strange  sister-in-law  opened 
the  side  door.  Maggie  was  married  and  living  in 
Cincinnati.  Oh,  fine — a  master  mechanic,  and 
there  were  twins.  She  started  back  toward  Finley's, 
thinking  of  Gerald,  and  halfway  she  changed  her 
mind. 

Maggie  Simms  married  and  living  in  Cincinnati. 
Twins!  Heigh-ho!  What  a  world!  The  visit  was 
hardly  a  success.  At  half  after  five  she  was  on  her 
way  back  to  the  court-house  steps.  Stupid  to  have 
made  it  six ! 

And  then,  of  course,  and  quite  as  you  would  have 
it,  Gerald  Fishback  came  along.  She  recognized  his 
blondness  long  before  he  saw  her.  He  was  bigger 
and  more  tanned,  and,  as  of  old,  carried  his  hat  in 

82 


BACK    PAY 

his  hand.  She  noticed  that  there  were  no  creases 
down  the  front  of  his  trousers,  but  the  tweed  was 
good  and  he  gave  off  that  intangible  aroma  of 
well-being. 

She  was  surprised  at  the  old  thrill  racing  over  her. 
Seeing  him  was  like  a  stab  of  quick  steel  through  the 
very  pit  of  her  being.  She  reached  out,  touching  him, 
before  he  saw  her. 

"Gerald,"  she  said,  soft  and  teasingly. 

It  was  actually  as  if  he  had  been  waiting  for  that 
touch,  because  before  he  could  possibly  have  per 
ceived  her  her  name  was  on  his  lips. 

" Hester!"  he  said,  the  blueness  of  his  eyes  flashing 
between  blinks.  "Not  Hester?" 

"Yes,  Hester,"  she  said,  smiling  up  at  him. 

He  grasped  both  her  hands,  stammering  for  words 
that  wanted  to  come  quicker  than  he  could  articu 
late. 

1 '  Hester ! "  he  kept  repeating.    ' '  Hester ! ' ' 

"To  think  you  knew  me,  Gerald!" 

"Know  you!  I'd  know  you  blindfolded.  And 
how — I —  You're  beautiful,  Hester!  I  think 
you've  grown  five  years  younger." 

"You've  got  on,  Gerald.    You  look  it." 

"Yes;  I'm  general  manager  now  at  Finley's." 

"I'm  so  glad.    Married?" 

"Not  while  there's  a  Hester  Bevins  on  earth." 

She  started  at  her  own  name. 

"How  do  you  know  I'm  not  married?" 

"I — I  know — "  he  said,  reddening  up. 

"Isn't  there  some  place  we  can  talk,  Gerald? 
I've  thirty  minutes  before  my  friends  call  for  me." 

"'Thirty  minutes?'" 

83 


BACK    PAY 

"Your  rooms?  Haven't  you  rooms  or  a  room 
where  we  could  go  and  sit  down?" 

"Why— why,  no,  Hester,"  he  said,  still  red.  "I'd 
rather  you  didn't  go  there.  But  here.  Let's  stop 
in  at  the  St.  James  Hotel.  There's  a  parlor." 

To  her  surprise,  she  felt  herself  color  up  and  was 
pleasantly  conscious  of  her  finger  tips. 

"You  darling!"    She  smiled  up  at  him. 

They  were  seated  presently  in  the  unaired  plush- 
and-cherry,  Nottingham-and-Axminster  parlor  of  a 
small-town  hotel. 

"Hester,"  he  said,  "you're  like  a  vision  come  to 
earth." 

"I'm  a  bad  durl,"  she  said,  challenging  his  eyes 
for  what  he  knew. 

"You're  a  little  saint  walked  down  and  leaving 
an  empty  pedestal  in  my  dreams." 

She  placed  her  forefinger  over  his  mouth. 

"Sh-h!"  she  said.  "I'm  not  a  saint,  Gerald;  you 
know  that." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  with  a  great  deal  of  boyishness  in 
his  defiance,  "I  do  know  it,  Hester,  but  it  is  those 
who  have  been  through  the  fire  who  can  some 
times  come  out — new.  It  was  your  early  environ 
ment." 

"My  aunt  died  on  the  town,  Gerald,  I  heard. 
I  could  have  saved  her  all  that  if  I  had  only  known. 
She  was  cheap,  aunt  was.  Poor  soul!  She  never 
looked  ahead." 

"It  was  your  early  environment,  Hester.  I've 
explained  that  often  enough  to  them  here.  I'd 
bank  on  you,  Hester — swear  by  you." 

She  patted  him. 

84 


BACK    PAY 

"I'm  a  pretty  bad  egg,  Gerald.  According  to  the 
standards  of  a  town  like  this,  I'm  rotten,  and  they're 
about  right.  For  five  years,  Gerald,  I've — " 

"The  real  you  is  ahead  of — and  not  behind  you, 
Hester." 

"How  wonderful,"  she  said,  "for  you  to  feel  that 
way,  but — " 

"Hester,"  he  said,  more  and  more  the  big  boy, 
and  his  big  blond  head  nearing  hers,  "I  don't  care 
about  anything  that's  past;  I  only  know  that,  for 
me,  you  are  the — " 

"Gerald,"  she  said,  "for  God's  sake!" 

"I'm  a  two  hundred-a-month  man  now,  Hester. 
I  want  to  build  you  the  prettiest,  the  whitest  little 
house  in  this  town.  Out  in  the  Briarwood  section. 
I'll  make  them  kowtow  to  you,  Hester;  I — " 

"Why,"  she  said,  slowly,  and  looking  at  him  with 
a  certain  sadness,  "you  couldn't  keep  me  in  stockings, 
Gerald!  The  aigrettes  on  this  hat  cost  more  than 
one  month  of  your  salary." 

"Good  God!"  he  said. 

"You're  a  dear,  sweet  boy  just  the  same;  but 
you  remember  what  I  told  you  about  my  crepe-de- 
Chine  soul." 

"Just  the  same,  I  love  you  best  in  those  crispy 
white  shirt  waists  you  used  to  wear  and  the  little 
blue  suits  and  sailor  hats.  You  remember  that  day 
at  Finleys'  picnic,  Hester,  that  day,  dear,  that  you — 
you—" 

"You  dear  boy!" 

"But  it — your  mistake — it — it's  all  over.  You 
work  now,  don't  you,  Hester?" 

Somehow,  looking  into  the  blueness  of  his  eyes 

85  • 


BACK   PAY 

and  their  entreaty  for  her  affirmative,  she  did  what 
you  or  I  might  have  done.  She  half  lied,  regretting 
it  while  the  words  still  smoked  on  her  lips. 

"Why,  yes,  Gerald;  I've  held  a  fine  position  in 
Lichtig  Brothers,  New  York  importers.  Those 
places  sometimes  pay  as  high  as  seventy -five  a  week. 
But  I  don't  make  any  bones,  Gerald;  I've  not  been 
an  angel.*' 

"The — the  salesman,  Hester?" — his  lips  quiver 
ing  with  a  nausea  for  the  question. 

"I  haven't  seen  him  in  four  years,"  she  answered, 
truthfully. 

He  laid  his  cheek  on  her  hand. 

"1  knew  you'd  come  through.  It  was  your 
environment.  I'll  marry  you  to-morrow — to-day, 
Hester.  I  love  you." 

"You  darling  boy!"  she  said,  her  lips  back  tight 
against  her  teeth.  "You  darling,  darling  boy!" 

"Please,  Hester!    We'll  forget  what  has  been." 

"Let  me  go,"  she  said,  rising  and  pinning  on  her 
hat;  "let  me  go — or — or  I'll  cry,  and — and  I  don't 
want  to  cry." 

"Hester,"  he  called,  rushing  after  her  and  wanting 
to  fold  her  back  into  his  arms,  "let  me  prove  my 
trust — my  love — " 

"Don't!    Let  me  go!    Let  me  go!" 

At  slightly  after  six  the  ultra  cavalcade  drew  up 
at  the  court-house  steps.  She  was  greeted  with  the 
pleasantries  and  the  gibes. 

"Have  a  good  time,  sweetness?"  asked  Wheeler, 
arranging  her  rugs. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  lying  back  and  letting  her  lids 
droop ;  ' '  but  tired — very,  very  tired. ' ' 

86 


BACK    PAY 

At  the  hotel,  she  stopped  a  moment  to  write  a 
telegram  before  going  up  for  the  vapor  bath,  nap, 
and  massage  that  were  to  precede  dinner. 

"Meyerbloom  &  Co.,  Furriers.  Fifth  Avenue, 
New  York,"  it  was  addressed. 

This  is  not  a  war  story  except  that  it  has  to  do 
with  profiteering,  parlor  patriots,  and  the  return  of 
Gerald  Fishback. 

While  Hester  was  living  this  tale,  and  the  chin 
chilla  coat  was  enveloping  her  like  an  ineffably  tender 
caress,  three  hundred  thousand  of  her  country's 
youths  were  at  strangle  hold  across  three  thousand 
miles  of  sea,  and  on  a  notorious  night  when  Hester 
walked,  fully  dressed  in  a  green  gown  of  iridescent 
fish  scales,  into  the  electric  fountain  of  a  seaside 
cabaret,  and  Wheeler  had  to  carry  her  to  her  car 
wrapped  in  a  sable  rug,  Gerald  Fishback  was  lying 
with  his  face  in  Flanders  mud,  and  his  eye  sockets 
blackly  deep  and  full  of  shrapnel,  and  a  lung-eating 
gas  cloud  rolling  at  him  across  the  vast  bombarded 
dawn. 

Hester  read  of  him  one  morning,  sitting  up  in  bed 
against  a  mound  of  lace-over-pink  pillows,  a  mas 
seuse  at  the  pink  soles  of  her  feet.  It  was  as  if  his 
name  catapulted  at  her  from  a  column  she  never 
troubled  to  read.  She  remained  quite  still,  looking 
at  the  name  for  a  full  five  minutes  after  it  had  pierced 
her  full  consciousness.  Then,  suddenly,  she  swung 
out  of  bed,  tilting  over  the  masseuse. 

"Tessie,"  she  said,  evenly  enough,  "that  will  do. 
I  have  to  hurry  to  Long  Island  to  a  base  hospital. 

87 


BACK    PAY 

Go  to  that  little  telephone  in  the  hall — will  you? — 
and  call  my  car." 

But  the  visit  was  not  so  easy  of  execution.  It 
required  two  days  of  red  tape  and  official  dispensa 
tion  before  she  finally  reached  the  seaside  hospital 
that,  by  unpleasant  coincidence,  only  a  year  before 
had  been  the  resort  hotel  of  more  than  one  dancing 
orgy. 

She  thought  she  would  faint  when  she  saw  him, 
jerking  herself  back  with  a  straining  of  all  her 
faculties.  The  blood  seemed  to  drain  away  from  her 
body,  leaving  her  ready  to  sink,  and  only  the  watch 
ful  and  threatening  eye  of  a  man  nurse  sustained  her. 
He  was  sitting  up  in  bed,  and  she  would  never 
have  recognized  in  him  anything  of  Gerald  except 
for  the  shining  Scandinavian  quality  of  his  hair. 
His  eyes  were  not  bandaged,  but  their  sockets  were 
dry  and  bare  like  the  beds  of  old  lakes  long  since 
drained.  She  had  only  seen  the  like  in  eyeless 
marble  busts.  There  were  unsuspected  cheek  bones, 
pitched  now  very  high  in  his  face,  and  his  neck, 
rising  above  the  army  nightshirt,  seemed  cruelly 
long,  possibly  from  thinness. 

"Are  you  Hester?"  whispered  the  man  nurse. 

She  nodded,  her  tonsils  squeezed  together  in  an 
absolute  knot. 

"He  called  for  you  all  through  his  delirium,"  he 
said,  and  went  out.  She  stood  at  the  bedside,  trying 
to  keep  down  the  screams  from  her  speech  when  it 
should  come.  But  he  was  too  quick  for  her. 

"Hester,"  he  said,  feeling  out. 

And  in  their  embrace,  her  agony  melted  to  tears 
that  choked  and  seared,  beat  and  scalded  her,  and 

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all  the  time  it  was  he  who  held  her  with  rigid  arm, 
whispered  to  her,  soothed  down  the  sobs  which  tore 
through  her  like  the  rip  of  silk,  seeming  to  split  her 
being. 

"Now — now!  Why,  Hester!  Now — now — now! 
Sh-h!  It  will  be  over  in  a  minute.  You  mustn't 
feel  badly.  Come  now,  is  this  the  way  to  greet  a 
fellow  that's  so  darn  glad  to  see  you  that  nothing 
matters?  Why  I  can  see  you,  Hester.  Plain  as  day 
in  your  little  crispy  waist.  Now,  now!  You'll  get 
used  to  it  in  a  minute.  Now — now — " 

"I  can't  stand  it,  Gerald!  I  can't!  Can't!  Kill 
me,  Gerald,  but  don't  ask  me  to  stand  it!" 

He  stroked  down  the  side  of  her,  lingering  at  her 
cheek. 

"Sh-h!  Take  your  time,  dear,"  he  said,  with  the 
first  furry  note  in  his  voice.  "I  know  it's  hard,  but 
take  your  time.  You'll  get  used  to  me.  It's  the 
shock,  that's  all.  Sh-h!" 

She  covered  his  neck  with  kisses  and  scalding 
tears,  her  compassion  for  him  racing  through  her  in 
chills. 

"I  could  tear  out  my  eyes,  Gerald,  and  give  them 
to  you.  I  could  tear  out  my  heart  and  give  it  to 
you.  I'm  bursting  of  pain.  Gerald!  Gerald!" 

There  was  no  sense  of  proportion  left  her.  She 
could  think  only  of  what  her  own  physical  suffering 
might  do  in  penance.  She  would  willingly  have 
opened  the  arteries  of  her  heart  and  bled  for  him  on 
the  moment.  Her  compassion  wanted  to  scream. 
She,  who  had  never  sacrificed  anything,  wanted 
suddenly  to  bleed  at  his  feet,  and  prayed  to  do  so 
on  the  agonized  crest  of  the  moment. 

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"There's  a  girl!  Why,  I'm  going  to  get  well, 
Hester,  and  do  what  thousands  of  others  of  the 
blinded  are  doing.  Build  up  a  new,  a  useful,  and  a 
busy  life." 

"It's  not  fair !   It's  not  fair ! ' ' 

"I'm  ready  now,  except  for  this  old  left  lung. 
It's  burnt  a  bit,  you  see — gas." 

"God!    God!" 

"It's  pretty  bad,  I  admit.  But  there's  another 
way  of  looking  at  it.  There's  a  glory  in  being  chosen 
to  bear  your  country's  wounds." 

"Your  beautiful  eyes!  Your  blue,  beautiful  eyes! 
O  God,  what  does  it  all  mean?  Living!  Dying!  All 
the  rotters,  all  the  rat-eyed  ones  I  know,  scot-free 
and  Gerald  chosen.  God!  God!  where  are  you?" 

"He  was  never  so  close  to  me  as  now,  Hester. 
And  with  you  here,  dear,  He  is  closer  than  ever." 

"I'll  never  leave  you,  Gerald,"  she  said,  crying 
down  into  his  sleeve  again.  "Don't  be  afraid  of  the 
dark,  dear;  I'll  never  leave  you." 

"Nonsense!"  he  said,  smoothing  her  hair  that  the 
hat  had  fallen  away  from. 

"Never!  Never!  I  wish  I  were  a  mat  for  you  to 
walk  on.  I  want  to  crawl  on  my  hands  and  knees 
for  you.  I'll  never  leave  you,  Gerald — never!" 

"My  beautiful  Hester!"  he  said,  unsteadily,  and 
then  again,  "Nonsense!" 

But,  almost  on  the  moment,  the  man  nurse  re 
turned  and  she  was  obliged  to  leave  him,  but  not 
without  throbbing  promises  of  the  to-morrow's  return, 
and  then  there  took  place,  downstairs  in  an  ante 
room,  a  long,  a  closeted,  and  very  private  interview 
with  a  surgeon  and  more  red  tape  and  filing  of  appli- 

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cations.  She  was  so  ,weak  from  crying  that  a  nurse 
was  called  finally  to  help  her  through  the  corridors 
to  her  car. 

Gerald's  left  lung  was  burned  out  and  he  had  three, 
possibly  four,  weeks  to  live. 

All  the  way  home,  in  her  tan  limousine  with  the 
little  yellow  curtains,  she  sat  quite  upright,  away 
from  the  upholstery,  crying  down  her  uncovered  face, 
but  a  sudden,  an  exultant  determination  hardening 
in  her  mind. 

That  night  a  strange  conversation  took  place  in 
the  Riverside  Drive  apartment.  She  sat  on  Wheeler's 
left  knee,  toying  with  his  platinum  chain,  a  strained, 
a  rather  terrible  pallor  out  in  her  face,  but  the  sobs 
well  under  her  voice,  and  its  modulation  about 
normal.  She  had  been  talking  for  over  two  hours, 
silencing  his  every  interruption  until  he  had  fallen 
quite  still. 

"And — and  that's  all,  Wheeler,"  she  ended  up. 
"I've  told  you  everything.  We  were  never  more 
than  just — friends — Gerald  and  me.  You  must  take 
my  word  for  it,  because  I  swear  it  before  God." 

"I  take  your  word,  Hester,"  he  said,  huskily. 

"And  there  he  lies,  Wheeler,  without — without 
any  eyes  in  his  head.  Just  as  if  they'd  been  burned 
out  by  irons.  And  he — he  smiles  when  he  talks. 
That's  the  awful  part.  Smiles  like — well,  I  guess 
like  the  angel  he — he  almost  is.  You  see,  he  says 
it's  a  glory  to  carry  the  wounds  of  his  country. 
Just  think!  just  think!  that  boy  to  feel  that,  the 
way  he  lies  there!" 

"Poor  boy!    Poor,  poor  boy!" 
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BACK    PAY 

"Gerald's  like  that.  So—so  full  of  faith.  And, 
Wheeler,  he  thinks  he's  going  to  get  well  and  lead  a 
useful  life  like  they  teach  the  blind  to  do.  He 
reminds  me  of  one  of  those  Greek  statues  down  at 
the  Athens  Cafe.  You  know — broken.  That's  it; 
he's  a  broken  statue." 

"Poor  fellow!  Poor  fellow!  Do  something  for 
him.  Buy  the  finest  fruit  in  the  town  for  him.  Send 
a  case  of  wine.  Two." 

"I — I  think  I  must  be  torn  to  pieces  inside, 
Wheeler,  the  way  I've  cried." 

"Poor  little  girl!" 

"Wheeler?" 

"Now,  now,"  he  said;  "taking  it  so  to  heart 
won't  do  no  good.  It's  rotten,  I  know,  but  worrying 
won't  help.  Got  me  right  upset,  too.  Come,  get  it 
off  your  mind.  Let's  take  a  ride.  Doll  up;  you 
look  a  bit  peaked.  Come  now,  and  to-morrow  we'll 
buy  out  the  town  for  him." 

"Wheeler?"  she  said.     "Wheeler?" 

"What?" 

"Don't  look,  Wheeler.  I've  something  else  to 
ask  of  you — something  queer." 

"Now,  now,"  he  said,  his  voice  hardening  but 
trying  to  maintain  a  chiding  note;  "you  know  what 
you  promised  after  the  chinchilla — no  more  this 
year  until — " 

"No,  no;  for  God's  sake,  not  that!  It's  still 
about  Gerald." 

"Well?" 

"Wheeler,  he's  only  got  four  weeks  to  live.  Five 
at  the  outside." 

"Now,  now,  girl;   we've  been  all  over  that." 

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"He  loves  me,  Wheeler,  Gerald  does." 

"Yes?"  dryly. 

"It  would  be  like  doing  something  decent — the 
only  decent  thing  I've  done  in  all  my  life,  Wheeler, 
almost  like  doing  something  for  the  war,  the  way 
these  women  in  the  pretty  white  caps  have  done, 
and  you  know  we — we  haven't  turned  a  finger  for 
it  except  to — to  gain — if  I  was  to — to  marry  Gerald 
for  those  few  weeks,  Wheeler.  I  know  it's  a — rotten 
sacrifice,  but  I  guess  that's  the  only  kind  I'm  capable 
of  making." 

He  sat  squat,  with  his  knees  spread. 

"You  crazy?"  he  said. 

"It  would  mean,  Wheeler,  his  dying  happy.  He 
doesn't  know  it's  all  up  with  him.  He'd  be  made 
happy  for  the  poor  little  rest  of  his  life.  He  loves 
me.  You  see,  Wheeler,  I  was  his  first — his  only 
sweetheart.  I'm  on  a  pedestal,  he  says,  in  his 
dreams.  I  never  told  you — but  that  boy  was  willing 
to  marry  me,  Wheeler,  knowing — some — of  the 
things  I  am.  He's  always  carried  round  a  dream  of 
me,  you  see — no,  you  wouldn't  see,  but  I've  been — 
well,  I  guess  sort  of  a  medallion  that  won't  tarnish 
in  his  heart.  Wheeler,  for  the  boy's  few  weeks  he 
has  left?  Wheeler?" 

"Well,  I'll  be  hanged!" 

"I'm  not  turning  holy,  Wheeler.  I  am  what  I 
am.  But  that  boy  lying  out  there — I  can't  bear  it! 
It  wouldn't  make  any  difference  with  us — after 
ward.  You  know  where  you  stand  with  me  and  for 
always,  but  it  would  mean  the  dying  happy  of  a 
boy  who  fought  for  us.  Let  me  marry  that  boy, 
Wheeler.  Let  his  light  go  out  in  happiness.  Whee- 

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ler?  Please,  Wheeler?"  He  would  not  meet  her 
eyes.  "Wheeler?" 

"Go  to  it,  Hester,"  he  said,  coughing  about  in 
his  throat  and  rising  to  walk  away.  "Bring  him 
here  and  give  him  the  fat  of  the  land.  You  can 
count  on  me  to  keep  out  of  the  way.  Go  to  it,"  he 
repeated. 

And  so  they  were  married,  Hester  holding  his 
hand  beside  the  hospital  cot,  the  man  nurse  and 
doctor  standing  by,  and  the  chaplain  incanting  the 
immemorial  words.  A  bar  of  sunshine  lay  across 
the  bed,  and  Gerald  pronounced  each  "I  will"  in  a 
lifted  voice  that  carried  to  the  four  corners  of  the 
little  room.  She  was  allowed  to  stay  that  night 
past  hospital  hours,  and  they  talked  with  the  dusk 
flowing  over  them. 

"Hester,  Hester,"  he  said,  "I  should  have  had 
the  strength  to  hold  out  against  your  making  this 
terrible  sacrifice." 

"It's  the  happiest  hour  of  my  life,"  she  said, 
kissing  him. 

"I  feel  well  enough  to  get  up  now,  sweetheart." 

"Gerald,  don't  force.  You've  weeks  ahead  before 
you  are  ready  for  that." 

"But  to-morrow,  dear,  home!  In  whose  car  are 
you  calling  for  me  to-morrow  to  take  me  home?" 

"In  a  friend's,  dearest." 

"Won't  I  be  crowding  up  our  little  apartment? 
Describe  it  again  to  me,  dearest — our  home." 

"It's  so  little,  Gerald.  Three  rooms  and  the 
littlest,  babiest  kitchen.  When  you're  once  up, 
I'll  teach  its  every  corner  to  you." 

Tears  seeped  through  the  line  where  his  lids  had 

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been,  and  it  was  almost  more  than  she  could 
bear. 

"I'll  make  it  up  to  you,  though,  Hester.  I  know 
I  should  have  been  strong  enough  to  hold  out  against 
your  marrying  me,  but  I'll  make  it  up.  I've  a  great 
scheme;  a  sort  of  braille  system  of  accountancy — " 

"Please,  Gerald— not  now!" 

"If  only,  Hester,  I  felt  easier  about  the  finances. 
Will  your  savings  stand  the  strain?  Your  staying  at 
home  from  your  work  this  way — and  then  me — " 

"Gerald  dear,  I've  told  you  so  often — I've  saved 
more  than  we  need." 

"My  girl!" 

"My  dear,  my  dear!"  she  said. 

They  moved  him  with  hardly  a  jar  in  an  army 
ambulance,  and  with  the  yellow  limousine  riding 
alongside  to  be  of  possible  aid,  and  she  had  the  bed 
stripped  of  its  laces  and  cool  with  linen  for  him,  and 
he  sighed  out  when  they  placed  him  on  it  and  would 
not  let  go  her  hand. 

"What  a  feeling  of  space  for  so  little  a  room!" 

"It's  the  open  windows,  love." 

He  lay  back  tiredly. 

"What  sweet  linen!" 

"I  shopped  it  for  you." 

"You,  too — you're  in  linen,  Hester?" 

"A  percale  shirt  waist.  I  shopped  it  for  you, 
too." 

"Give  me  your  hand,"  he  said,  and  pressed  a 
string  of  close  kisses  into  its  palm. 

The  simplicity  of  the  outrageous  subterfuge 
amazed  even  her.  She  held  hothouse  grapes  at  two 

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dollars  a  pound  to  his  lips,  and  he  ate  them  through 
a  smile. 

"Naughty,  extravagant  girl!"  he  said. 

"I  saw  them  on  a  fruit  stand  for  thirty  cents,  and 
couldn't  resist." 

"Never  mind;   I'll  make  it  up  to  you." 

Later,  he  asked  for  braille  books,  turning  his 
sightless  face  toward  her  as  he  studied,  trying  to 
concentrate  through  the  pain  in  his  lung. 

"If  only  you  wouldn't  insist  upon  the  books 
awhile  yet,  dear.  The  doctor  says  it's  too  soon." 

"I  feel  so  strong,  Hester,  with  you  near,  and, 
besides,  I  must  start  the  pot  boiling." 

She  kissed  down  into  the  high  nap  of  his  hair,  softly. 

Evenings,  she  read  to  him  newspaper  accounts  of 
his  fellow-soldiers,  and  the  day  of  the  peace,  for 
which  he  had  paid  so  terribly,  she  rolled  his  bed, 
alone,  with  a  great  tugging  and  straining,  to  the 
open  window,  where  the  wind  from  the  river  could 
blow  in  against  him  and  steamboat  whistles  shoot 
up  like  rockets. 

She  was  so  inexpressibly  glad  for  the  peace  day. 
Somehow,  it  seemed  easier  and  less  blackly  futile 
to  give  him  up. 

Of  Wheeler  for  three  running  weeks  she  had  not  a 
glimpse,  and  then,  one  day,  he  sent  up  a  hamper, 
not  a  box,  but  an  actual  trunk  of  roses,  and  she,  in 
turn,  sent  them  up  the  back  way  to  Kitty's  flat, 
not  wanting  even  their  fragrance  released. 

With  Kitty  there  were  little  hurried  confabs  each 
day  outside  the  apartment  door  in  the  hallway  before 
the  elevator  shaft.  A  veil  of  awe  seemed  to  wrap 
the  Drew  woman. 

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"I  can't  get  it  out  of  my  head,  Hester.  It's  like  a 
fairy  story,  and,  in  another  way,  it's  a  scream — 
Wheeler  standing  for  this." 

"Sh-h,  Kitty!    His  ears  are  so  sensitive." 

"Quit  shushing  me  every  time  I  open  my  mouth. 
Poor  kid !  Let  me  have  a  look  at  him.  He  wouldn't 
know." 

"No!    No!" 

"God!  if  it  wasn't  so  sad  it  would  be  a  scream — 
Wheeler  footing  the  bills!" 

"Oh— you!    Oh— oh— you!" 

"All  right,  all  right!  Don't  take  the  measles 
over  it.  I'm  going.  Here's  some  chicken  broth  I 
brought  down.  Ed  sent  it  up  to  me  from  Sherry's." 

But  Hester  poured  it  into  the  sink  for  some  name 
less  reason,  and  brewed  some  fresh  from  a  fowl  she 
tipped  the  hallboy  a  dollar  to  go  out  and  purchase. 

She  slept  on  a  cot  at  the  foot  of  his  bed,  so  sensi 
tive  to  his  waking  that  almost  before  he  came  up 
to  consciousness  she  was  at  his  side.  All  day  she 
wore  the  little  white  shirt  waists,  a  starchy  one 
fresh  each  morning,  and  at  night  scratchy  little 
unlacy  nightgowns  with  long  sleeves  and  high  yokes. 
He  liked  to  run  his  hand  along  the  crispness  of  the 
fabric. 

"I  love  you  in  cool  stuff,  Hester.  You're  so  cool 
yourself,  I  always  think  of  you  in  the  little  white 
waist  and  blue  skirt.  You  remember,  dear — 
Finleys'  annual?" 

"I — I'm  going  to  dress  like  that  for  you  always, 
Gerald." 

"I  won't  let  you  be  going  back  to  work  for  long, 
sweetheart.  I've  some  plans  up  my  sleeve,  I  have." 

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"Yes!    Yes!" 

But  when  the  end  did  come,  it  was  with  as  much 
of  a  shock  as  if  she  had  not  been  for  days  expecting 
it.  The  doctor  had  just  left,  puncturing  his  arm 
and  squirting  into  his  poor  tired  system  a  panacea 
for  the  pain.  But  he  would  not  react  to  it,  fighting 
down  the  drowsiness. 

"Hester,"  he  said,  suddenly,  and  a  little  weakly, 
"lean  down,  sweetheart,  and  kiss  me — long — long — " 

She  did,  and  it  was  with  the  pressure  of  her  lips 
to  his  that  he  died. 

It  was  about  a  week  after  the  funeral  that  Wheeler 
came  back.  She  was  on  the  chaise-longue  that  had 
been  dragged  out  into  the  parlor,  in  the  webbiest  of 
white  negligees,  a  little  large-eyed,  a  little  subdued, 
but  sweetening  the  smile  she  turned  toward  him  by 
a  trick  she  had  of  lifting  the  brows. 

"Hel-lo,  Wheeler!"  she  said,  raising  her  cheek  to 
be  kissed. 

He  trailed  his  lips,  but  did  not  seek  her  mouth, 
sitting  down  rather  awkwardly  and  in  the  spread- 
kneed  fashion  he  had. 

"Well,  girl— you  all  right?" 

"You  helped,"  she  said. 

"It  gave  me  a  jolt,  too.  I  made  over  twenty -five 
thousand  to  the  Red  Cross  on  the  strength  of  it." 

"Thank you,  Wheeler." 

"Lord!"  he  said,  rising  and  rubbing  his  hands 
together.  "Give  us  a  couple  of  fingers  to  drink, 
honey;  I'm  cotton -mouthed." 

She  reached  languidly  for  a  blue-enameled  bell, 
lying  back,  with  her  arms  dangling  and  her  smile 

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out.    Then,  as  if  realizing  that  the  occasion  must  be 
lifted,  turned  her  face  to  him. 

"Old  bummer!"  she  said,  using  one  of  her  terms 
of  endearment  for  him  and  two-thirds  closing  her 
eyes.  Then  did  he  stoop  and  kiss  her  roundly  on 
the  lips. 

For  the  remainder  of  this  tale,  I  could  wish  for  a 
pen  supernally  dipped,  or  for  a  metaphysician's 
plating  to  my  vernacular,  or  for  the  linguistic  patois 
of  that  land  off  somewhere  to  the  west  of  Life.  Or 
maybe  just  a  neurologist's  chart  of  Hester's  nerve 
history  would  help. 

In  any  event,  after  an  evening  of  musical  comedy 
and  of  gelatinous  dancing,  Hester  awoke  at  four 
o'clock  the  next  morning  out  of  an  hour  of  sound 
sleep,  leaping  to  her  knees  there  in  bed  like  a  quick 
flame,  her  gesture  shooting  straight  up  toward  the 
jointure  of  wall  and  ceiling. 

' '  Gerald ! ' '  she  called,  her  smoky  black  hair  floating 
around  her  and  her  arms  cutting  through  the  room's 
blackness.  "Gerald!"  Suddenly  the  room  was  not 
black.  It  was  light  with  the  Scandinavian  blondness 
of  Gerald,  the  head  of  him  nebulous  there  above  the 
pink-satin  canopy  of  her  dressing  table,  and,  more 
than  that,  the  drained  lakes  of  his  sockets  were  deep 
with  eyes.  Yes,  in  all  their  amazing  blueness,  but 
queerly  sharpened  to  steel  points  that  went  through 
Hester  and  through  her  as  if  bayonets  were  pushing 
into  her  breasts  and  her  breathing. 

"Gerald!"  she  shrieked,  in  one  more  cry  that 
curdled  the  quiet,  and  sat  up  in  bed,  trembling  and 
hugging  herself,  and  breathing  in  until  her  lips  were 

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BACK    PAY 

drawn  shudderingly  against  her  teeth  like  wind- 
sucked  window  shades. 

"Gerald!"  And  then  the  picture  did  a  sort  of 
moving-picture  fade-out,  and  black  Lottie  came 
running  with  her  hair  grotesquely  greased  and 
flattened  to  take  out  the  kink,  and  gave  her  a  drink 
of  water  with  the  addition  of  two  drops  from  a  bottle, 
and  turned  on  the  night  light  and  went  back  to  bed. 

The  next  morning  Hester  carried  about  what  she 
called  "a  head,"  and,  since  it  was  Wheeler's  day  at 
Rosencranz,  remained  in  bed  until  three  o'clock, 
Kitty  curled  at  the  foot  of  it  the  greater  part  of  the 
forenoon. 

"It  was  the  rotten  night  did  me  up.  Dreams! 
Ugh!  dreams!" 

"No  wonder,"  diagnosed  Kitty,  sweetly.  "Indi 
gestion  from  having  your  cake  and  eating  it." 

At  three  she  dressed  and  called  for  her  car,  driving 
down  to  the  Ivy  Funeral  Rooms,  a  Gothic  Thana- 
topsis,  set,  with  one  of  those  laughs  up  her  sleeves 
in  which  the  vertical  city  so  loves  to  indulge,  right  in 
the  heart  of  the  town,  between  an  automobile-acces 
sory  shop  and  a  quick-lunch  room.  Gerald  had  been 
buried  from  there  with  simple  flag-draped  service  in 
the  Gothic  chapel  that  was  protected  from  the  view 
and  roar  of  the  Elevated  trains  by  suitably  stained 
windows.  There  was  a  check  in  Hester's  purse 
made  out  for  an  amount  that  corresponded  to  the 
statement  she  had  received  from  the  Ivy  Funeral 
Rooms.  And  right  here  again,  for  the  sake  of  your 
elucidation,  I  could  wish  at  least  for  the  neurolo 
gist's  chart.  At  the  very  door  to  the  establishment 
— with  one  foot  across  the  threshold,  in  fact — she 

100 


BACK    PAY 

paused,  her  face  tilted  toward  the  corner  where  wall 
and  ceiling  met,  and  at  whatever  she  saw  there  her 
eyes  dilated  widely  and  her  left  hand  sprang  to  her 
bosom  as  if  against  the  incision  of  quick  steel. 
Then,  without  even  entering,  she  rushed  back  to  her 
car  again,  urging  her  chauffeur,  at  the  risk  of  every 
speed  regulation,  homeward. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  purgatorial  weeks 
that  were  soon  to  tell  on  Hester.  They  actually 
brought  out  a  streak  of  gray  through  her  hair, 
which  Lottie  promptly  dyed  and  worked  under  into 
the  lower  part  of  her  coiffure.  For  herself,  Hester 
would  have  let  it  remain. 

Wheeler  was  frankly  perplexed.  God  knows  it 
was  bad  enough  to  be  called  upon  to  endure  streaks 
of  unreasonableness  at  Rosencranz,  but  Hester 
wasn't  there  to  show  that  side  to  him  if  she  had  it. 
To  be  pretty  frank  about  it,  she  was  well  paid  not 
to.  Well  paid!  He'd  done  his  part.  More  than 
nine  out  of  ten  would  have  done.  Been  made  a  jay 
of,  if  the  truth  was  known.  She  was  a  Christmas- 
tree  bauble  and  was  expected  to  throw  off  holiday 
iridescence.  There  were  limits! 

"You're  off  your  feed,  girl.  Go  off  by  yourself 
and  speed  up." 

"It's  the  nights,  Gerald.  Good  God— I  mean 
Wheeler!  They  kill  me.  I  can't  sleep.  Can't  you 
get  a  doctor  who  will  give  me  stronger  drops?  He 
doesn't  know  my  case.  Nerves,  he  calls  it.  It's 
this  head.  If  only  I  could  get  rid  of  this  head ! " 

"You  women  and  your  nerves  and  your  heads! 
Are  you  all  alike?  Get  out  and  get  some  exercise. 
Keep  down  your  gasoline  bills  and  it  will  send  your 

101 


BACK    PAY 

spirits  up.     There's  such  a  thing  as  having  it  too 
good." 

She  tried  to  meet  him  in  lighter  vein  after  that, 
dressing  her  most  bizarrely,  and  greeting  him  one 
night  in  a  batik  gown,  a  new  process  of  dyeing  that 
could  be  flamboyant  and  narrative  in  design.  This 
one,  a  long,  sinuous  robe  that  enveloped  her  slimness 
like  a  flame,  beginning  down  around  the  train  in  a 
sullen  smoke  and  rushing  up  to  her  face  in  a  burst 
of  crimson. 

He  thought  her  so  exquisitely  rare  that  he  was 
not  above  the  poor,  soggy  device  of  drinking  his 
dinner  wine  from  the  cup  of  her  small  crimson 
slipper,  and  she  dangled  on  his  knee  like  the  danger 
ous  little  flame  she  none  too  subtly  purported  to  be, 
and  he  spanked  her  quickly  and  softly  across  the 
wrists  because  she  was  too  nervous  to  hold  the  match 
steadily  enough  for  his  cigar  to  take  light,  and  then 
kissed  away  all  the  mock  sting. 

But  the  next  morning,  at  the  fateful  four  o'clock, 
and  in  spite  of  four  sleeping-drops,  Lottie  on  the 
cot  at  the  foot  of  her  bed,  and  the  night  light  burn 
ing,  she  awoke  on  the  crest  of  such  a  shriek  that  a 
stiletto  might  have  slit  the  silence,  the  end  of  the 
sheet  crammed  up  and  into  her  mouth,  and,  ignoring 
all  of  Lottie's  calming,  sat  up  on  her  knees,  her 
streaming  eyes  on  the  jointure  of  wall  and  ceiling, 
where  the  open,  accusing  ones  of  Gerald  looked  down 
at  her.  It  was  not  that  they  were  terrible  eyes. 
They  were  full  of  the  sweet  blue,  and  clear  as  lakes. 
It  was  only  that  they  knew.  Those  eyes  knew. 
They  knew!  She  tried  the  device  there  at  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning  of  tearing  up  the  still  unpaid  check 

102 


BACK    PAY 

to  the  Ivy  Funeral  Rooms,  and  then  she  curled  up 
in  bed  with  her  hand  in  the  negro  maid's  and  her 
face  half  buried  in  the  pillow. 

"Help  me,  Lottie!"  she  begged;   "help  me!" 

"Law!  Pore  child!  Get  tin'  the  horrors  every 
night  thisaway!  I've  been  through  it  before  with 
other  ladies,  but  I  never  saw  a  case  of  the  sober 
horrors  befoh.  Looks  like  they's  the  worst  of  all. 
Go  to  sleep,  child.  I's  holdin'." 

You  see,  Lottie  had  looked  in  on  life  where  you 
and  I  might  not.  A  bird's-eye  view  may  be  very, 
very  comprehensive,  but  a  domestic 's-eye  view  can 
sometimes  be  very,  very  close. 

And  then,  one  night,  after  Hester  had  beat  her 
hands  down  into  the  mattress  and  implored  Gerald 
to  close  his  accusing  eyes,  she  sat  up  in  bed,  waiting 
for  the  first  streak  of  dawn  to  show  itself,  railing 
at  the  pain  in  her  head. 

"God!  My  head!  Rub  it,  Lottie !  My  head!  My 
eyes !  The  back  of  my  neck ! ' ' 

The  next  morning  she  did  what  you  probably 
have  been  expecting  she  would  do.  She  rose  and 
dressed,  sending  Lottie  to  bed  for  a  needed  rest. 
Dressed  herself  in  the  little  old  blue-serge  suit  that 
had  been  hanging  in  the  very  back  of  a  closet  for 
four  years,  with  a  five-  and  two  ten-dollar  bills  pinned 
into  its  pocket,  and  pressed  the  little  blue  sailor 
hat  down  on  the  smooth,  winglike  quality  of  her 
hair.  She  looked  smaller,  peculiarly,  indescribably 
younger.  She  wrote  Wheeler  a  note,  dropping  it 
down  the  mail-chute  in  the  hall,  and  then  came 
back,  looking  about  rather  aimlessly  for  something 
she  might  want  to  pack.  There  was  nothing;  so 

103 


BACK    PAY 

she  went  out  quite  bare  and  simply,  with  all  her 
lovely  jewels  in  the  leather  case  on  the  upper  shelf 
of  the  bedroom  closet,  as  she  had  explained  to 
Wheeler  in  the  note. 

That  afternoon  she  presented  herself  to  Lichtig. 
He  was  again  as  you  would  expect — round-bellied, 
and  wore  his  cigar  up  obliquely  from  one  corner  of 
his  mouth.  He  engaged  her  immediately  at  an 
increase  of  five  dollars  a  week,  and  as  she  was  leaving 
with  the  promise  to  report  at  eight-thirty  the  next 
morning  he  pinched  her  cheek,  she  pulling  away 
angrily. 

"None  of  that!" 

' '  My  mistake, ' '  he  apologized. 

She  considered  it  promiscuous  and  cheap,  and 
you  know  her  aversion  for  cheapness. 

Then  she  obtained,  after  a  few  forays  in  and  out 
of  brownstone  houses  in  West  Forty-fifth  Street, 
one  of  those  hall  bedrooms  so  familiar  to  human- 
interest  stories — the  iron-bed,  washstand,  and  slop- 
jar  kind.  There  was  a  five-dollar  advance  required. 
That  left  her  twenty  dollars. 

She  shopped  a  bit  then  in  an  Eighth  Avenue 
department  store,  and,  with  the  day  well  on  the 
wane,  took  a  street  car  up  to  the  Ivy  Funeral  Rooms. 
This  time  she  entered,  but  the  proprietor  did  not 
recognize  her  until  she  explained.  As  you  know,  she 
looked  smaller  and  younger,  and  there  was  no  tan 
car  at  the  curb. 

"I  want  to  pay  this  off  by  the  week,"  she  said, 
handing  him  out  the  statement  and  a  much-folded 
ten-dollar  bill.  He  looked  at  her,  surprised.  "Yes," 
she  said,  her  teeth  biting  off  the  word  in  a  click. 

104 


BACK    PAY 

"Certainly,"  he  replied,  handing  her  out  a  receipt 
for  the  ten. 

"I  will  pay  five  dollars  a  week  hereafter." 

"That  will  stretch  it  out  to  twenty-eight  weeks," 
he  said,  still  doubtfully. 

"I  can't  help  it;   I  must."    . 

"Certainly,"  he  said,  "that  will  be  all  right," 
but  looked  puzzled. 

That  night  she  slept  in  the  hall  bedroom  in  the 
Eighth  Avenue,  machine-stitched  nightgown.  She 
dropped  off  about  midnight,  praying  not  to  awaken 
at  four.  But  she  did — with  a  slight  start,  sitting  up 
in  bed,  her  eyes  where  the  wall  and  ceiling  joined. 

Gerald's  face  was  there,  and  his  blue  eyes  were 
open,  but  the  steel  points  were  gone.  They  were 
smiling  eyes.  They  seemed  to  embrace  her,  to  wash 
her  in  their  fluid. 

All  her  fear  and  the  pain  in  her  head  were  gone. 
She  sat  up,  looking  at  him,  the  tears  streaming  down 
over  her  smile  and  her  lips  moving. 

Then,  sighing  out  like  a  child,  she  lay  back  on 
the  pillow,  turned  over,  and  went  to  sleep. 

And  this  is  the  story  of  Hester  which  so  insisted 
to  be  told.  I  think  she  must  have  wanted  you  to 
know.  And  wanted  Gerald  to  know  that  you  know, 
and,  in  the  end,  I  rather  think  she  wanted  God  to 
know. 


THE  VERTICAL  CITY 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

IN  the  most  vertical  city  in  the  world  men  have 
run  up  their  dreams  and  their  ambitions  into  slim 
skyscrapers  that  seem  to  exclaim  at  the  audacity  of 
the  mere  mortar  that  sustains  them. 

Minarets  appear  almost  to  tamper  with  the  stars; 
towers  to  impale  the  moon.  There  is  one  fifty-six- 
story  rococo  castle,  built  from  the  five-and-ten-cent- 
store  earnings  of  a  merchant  prince,  that  shoots 
upward  with  the  beautiful  rush  of  a  Roman  candle. 

Any  Manhattan  sunset,  against  a  sky  that  looks 
as  if  it  might  give  to  the  poke  of  a  finger,  like  a 
dainty  woman's  pink  flesh,  there  marches  a  sil 
houetted  caravan  of  tower,  dome,  and  the  astonished 
crests  of  office  buildings. 

All  who  would  see  the  sky  must  gaze  upward 
between  these  rockets  of  frenzied  architecture, 
which  are  as  beautiful  as  the  terrific  can  ever  be 
beautiful. 

In  the  vertical  city  there  are  no  horizons  of 
infinitude  to  rest  the  eyes;  rather  little  breakfast 
napkins  of  it  showing  between  walls  and  up  through 
areaways.  Sometimes  even  a  lunchcloth  of  five,  six, 
or  maybe  sixty  hundred  stars  or  a  bit  of  daylight- 
blue  with  a  caul  of  sunshine  across,  hoisted  there  as 
if  run  up  a  flagpole. 

It  is  well  in  the  vertical  city  if  the  eyes  and  the 

109 


THE   VERTIICAL   CITY 

heart  have  a  lift  to  them,  because,  after  all,  these 
bits  of  cut-up  infinitude,  as  many-shaped  as  cookies, 
even  when  seen  from  a  tenement  window  and  to  the 
accompaniment  of  crick  in  the  neck,  are  as  full  of 
mysterious  alchemy  over  men's  hearts  as  the  desert 
sky  or  the  sea  sky.  That  is  why,  up  through  the  wells 
of  men's  walls,  one  glimpse  of  sky  can  twist  the  soul 
with — oh,  the  bitter,  the  sweet  ache  that  lies  some 
where  within  the  heart's  own  heart,  curled  up  there 
like  a  little  protozoa.  That  is,  if  the  heart  and  the 
eyes  have  a  lift  to  them.  Marylin's  had. 


Marylin!  How  to  convey  to  you  the  dance  of 
her!  The  silver  Scheherazade  of  poplar  leaves 
when  the  breeze  is  playful?  No.  She  was  far 
nimbler  than  a  leaf  tugging  at  its  stem.  A  young 
faun  on  the  brink  of  a  pool,  startled  at  himself? 
Yes,  a  little.  Because  Marylin's  head  always  had 
a  listening  look  to  it,  as  if  for  a  message  that  never 
quite  came  through  to  her.  From  where?  Marylin 
didn't  know  and  didn't  know  that  she  didn't  know. 
Probably  that  accounted  for  a  little  pucker  that 
could  sometimes  alight  between  her  eyes.  Scarcely 
a  shadow,  rather  the  shadow  of  a  shadow.  A  lute, 
played  in  a  western  breeze?  Once  a  note  of  music, 
not  from  a  lute  however,  but  played  on  a  cheap 
harmonica,  had  caught  Marylin's  heart  in  a  little 
ecstasy  of  palpitations,  but  that  doesn't  necessarily 
signify.  Zephyr  with  Aurora  playing?  Laughter 
holding  both  his  sides? 

How  Marylin,  had  she  understood  it,  would  have 
kicked  the  high  hat  off  of  such  Miltonic  phrasing. 

no 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

Ah,  she  was  like — herself ! 

And  yet,  if  there  must  be  found  a  way  to  convey 
her  to  you  more  quickly,  let  it  be  one  to  which 
Marylin  herself  would  have  dipped  a  bow. 

She  was  like  nothing  so  much  as  unto  a  whole 
two  dollars*  worth  of  little  five-cent  toy  balloons 
held  captive  in  a  sea  breeze  and  tugging  toward 
some  ozonic  beyond  in  which  they  had  never  swum, 
yet  strained  so  naturally  toward. 

That  was  it!  A  whole  two  dollars'  worth  of  tug 
ging  balloons.  Red — blue — orange — green — silver, 
jerking  in  hollow-sided  collisions,  and  one  fat-faced 
pink  one  for  ten  cents,  with  a  smile  painted  on  one 
side  and  a  tear  on  the  other. 

And  what  if  I  were  to  tell  you  that  this  phantom 
of  a  delight  of  a  Marylin,  whose  hair  was  a  sieve 
for  sun  and  whose  laughter  a  streamer  of  it,  had  had 
a  father  who  had  been  shot  to  death  on  the  under- 
slinging  of  a  freight  car  in  one  of  the  most  notorious 
prison  getaways  ever  recorded,  and  whose  mother- 
but  never  mind  right  here ;  it  doesn't  matter  to  the 
opening  of  this  story,  because  Marylin,  with  all  her 
tantalizing  capacity  for  paradox,  while  every  inch 
a  part  of  it  all,  was  not  at  all  a  part  of  it. 

For  five  years,  she  who  had  known  from  infancy 
the  furtive  Bradstreet  of  some  of  the  vertical  city's 
most  notorious  aliases  and  gang  names,  and  who 
knew,  almost  by  baptism  of  fire,  that  there  were 
short  cuts  to  an  easier  and  weightier  wage  envelope, 
had  made  buttonholes  from  eight  until  five  on  the 
blue-denim  pleat  before  it  was  stitched  down  the 
front  of  men's  blue-denim  shirts. 

At  sweet  sixteen  she,  whose  mother  had  borne  her 

in 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

out  of  wed — well,  anyway,  at  sweet  sixteen,  like  the 
maiden  in  the  saying,  she  had  never  been  kissed, 
nor  at  seventeen,  but  at  eighteen — 

It  was  this  way.  Steve  Turner — "  Getaway , "  as 
the  quick  lingo  of  the  street  had  him — liked  her. 
Too  well.  I  firmly  believe,  though,  that  if  in  the 
lurid  heat  lightning  of  so  stormy  a  career  as  Get 
away's  the  beauty  of  peace  and  the  peace  of  beauty 
ever  found  moment,  Marylin  nestled  in  that 
brief  breathing  space  somewhere  deep  down  within 
the  noisy  cabaret  of  Getaway's  being.  His  eyes, 
which  had  never  done  anything  of  the  sort  except 
under  stimulus  of  the  horseradish  which  he  ate  in 
quantities  off  quick-lunch  counters,  could  smart  to 
tears  at  the  thought  of  her.  And  over  the  emotions 
which  she  stirred  in  him,  and  which  he  could  not 
translate,  he  became  facetious— idiotically  so. 

Slim  and  supine  as  the  bamboo  cane  he  invariably 
affected,  he  would  wait  for  her,  sometimes  all  of  the 
six  work-a-evenings  of  the  week,  until  she  came 
down  out  of  the  grim  iron  door  of  the  shirt  factory 
where  she  worked,  his  one  hip  flung  out,  bamboo 
cane  bent  almost  double,  and,  in  his  further  zeal  to 
attitudinize,  one  finger  screwing  up  furiously  at  a 
vacant  upper  lip.  That  was  a  favorite  comedy  man 
nerism,  screwing  at  where  a  mustache  might  have 
been. 

" Getaway!"  she  would  invariably  admonish, 
with  her  reproach  all  in  the  inflection  and  with  the 
bluest  blue  in  her  eyes  he  had  ever  seen  outside  of 
a  bisque  doll's. 

The  peculiar  joy,  then,  of  linking  her  sweetly 
resisting  arm  into  his;  of  folding  over  each  little 

112 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

finger,  so !  until  there  were  ten  tendrils  at  the  crotch 
of  his  elbow  and  his  heart.  Of  tilting  his  straw 
"katy"  forward,  with  his  importance  of  this  pos 
session,  so  that  the  back  of  his  head  came  out  in  a 
bulge  and  his  hip,  and  then  of  walking  off  with  her, 
so !  Ah  yes,  so ! 

MARYLIN  (who  had  the  mysterious  little  jerk  in  her 

laugh  of  a  very  young  child} :  l 1  Getaway, 

you're  the  biggest  case!" 
GETAWAY  (wild  to  amuse  her  further):    "Hocus 

pocus,  Salamagundi!    I  smell  the  blood 

of  an  ice-cream  sundae!" 
MARYLIN  (hands  to  her  hips  and  her  laughter  full  of 

the  jerks):    "Getaway,  stop  your  mon- 

keyshines.     The  cop  has  his  eye  on 

you!" 

GETAWAY  (sobered):  "C'm  on!" 
Therein  lay  some  of  the  wonder  of  her  freshet 
laughter.  Because  to  Marylin  a  police  officer  was 
not  merely  a  uniformed  mentor  of  the  law,  designed 
chiefly  to  hold  up  traffic  for  her  passing,  and  with 
his  night  stick  strike  security  into  her  heart  as  she 
hurried  home  of  short,  wintry  evenings.  A  little 
procession  of  him  and  his  equally  dread  brother,  the 
plain-clothes  man,  had  significantly  patrolled  the 
days  of  her  childhood. 

Once  her  mother,  who  had  come  home  from  a 
shopping  expedition  with  the  inside  pocket  of  her 
voluminous  cape  full  of  a  harvest  of  the  sheerest  of 
baby  things  to  match  Marylin's  blond  loveliness — 
batiste — a  whole  bolt  of  Brussels  lace — had  bitten 
the  thumb  of  a  policeman  until  it  hung,  because  he 
had  surprised  her  horribly  by  stepping  in  through 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

the  fire  escape"as  she  was  unwinding  the  Brussels 
lace. 

Another  time,  from  her  mother's  trembling  knee, 
she  had  seen  her  father  in  a  crowded  courtroom 
standing  between  two  uniforms,  four  fingers  peeping 
over  each  of  his  shoulders! 

A  uniform  had  shot  her  father  from  the  under 
pinnings  of  the  freight  car.  Her  mother  had  died 
with  the  phantom  of  one  marching  across  her 
delirium.  Even  opposite  the  long,  narrow,  and 
exceedingly  respectable  rooming  house  in  which 
she  now  dwelt  a  uniform  had  stood  for  several  days 
lately,  contemplatively. 

There  was  a  menacing  flicker  of  them  almost 
across  her  eyeballs,  so  close  they  lay  to  her  experience, 
and  yet  how  she  could  laugh  when  Getaway  made  a 
feint  toward  the  one  on  her  beat,  straightening  up 
into  exaggerated  decorum  as  the  eye  of  the  law, 
noting  his  approach,  focused. 

"Getaway,"  said  Marylin,  hop-skipping  to  keep 
up  with  him  now,  "why  has  old  Deady  got  his  eye 
on  you  nowadays?" 

Here  Getaway  flung  his  most  Yankee-Doodle- 
Dandy  manner,  collapsing  inward  at  his  extremely 
thin  waistline,  arms  akimbo,  his  step  designed  to  be 
a  mincing  one,  and  his  voice  as  soprano  as  it  could  be. 

"You  don't  know  the  half  of  it,  dearie.  I've  been 
slapping  granny's  wrist,  just  like  that.  Ts-s-st!" 

But  somehow  the  laughter  had  run  out  of  Mary- 
lin's  voice.  "Getaway,"  she  said,  stopping  on  the 
sidewalk,  so  that  when  he  answered  his  face  must  be 
almost  level  with  hers — "you're  up  to  something 
again." 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

"I'm  up  to  snuff,"  he  said,  and  gyrated  so  that 
the  bamboo  cane  looped  a  circle. 

She  almost  cried  as  she  looked  at  him,  so  swift  was 
her  change  of  mood,  her  lips  trembling  with  the 
quiver  of  flesh  that  has  been  bruised. 

"Oh,  Getaway!"  she  said,  "get  away."  And 
pushed  him  aside  that  she  might  walk  on.  He  did 
not  know,  nor  did  she,  for  that  matter,  the  rustling 
that  was  all  of  a  sudden  through  her  voice,  but  it 
was  almost  one  of  those  moments  when  she  could 
make  his  eyes  smart. 

But  what  he  said  was,  "For  the  luvagod,  whose 
dead?" 

1 1  Me,  in  here,"  she  said,  very  quickly,  and  placed  her 
hand  to  her  flimsy  blouse  where  her  heart  beat  under  it. 

"Whadda  you  mean,  dead?" 

"Just  dead,  sometimes — as  if  something  inside  of 
me  that  can't  get  out  had — had  just  curled  up  and 
croaked." 

The  walk  from  the  shirt  factory  where  Marylin 
worked,  to  the  long,  lean  house  in  the  long,  lean 
street  where  she  roomed,  smelled  of  unfastidious  bed 
clothes  airing  on  window  sills;  of  garbage  cans  that 
repulsed  even  high-legged  cats;  of  petty  tradesmen 
who,  mysteriously  enough,  with  aerial  clotheslines 
flapping  their  perpetually  washings,  worked  and 
sweated  and  even  slept  in  the  same  sour  garments. 
Facing  her  there  on  these  sidewalks  of  slops,  and  the 
unprivacy  of  stoops  swarming  with  enormous  young 
mothers  and  puny  old  children,  Getaway,  with  a 
certain  fox  pointiness  out  in  his  face,  squeezed  her 
arm  until  she  could  feel  the  bite  of  his  elaborately 
manicured  finger  nails. 

"5 


THE    VERTICAL, CITY 

"Marry  me,  Marylin,"  he  said,  ''and  you'll  wear 
diamonds." 

In  spite  of  herself,  his  bay-rummed  nearness  was 
not  unpleasant  to  her.  "Cut  it  out — here,  Geta 
way,"  she  said  through  a  blush. 

He  hooked  her  very  close  to  him  by  the  elbow,  and 
together  they  crossed  through  the  crash  of  a  street 
bifurcated  by  elevated  tracks. 

"You  hear,  Marylin,"  he  shouted  above  the  din. 
"Marry  me  and  you'll  wear  diamonds." 

"Getaway,  you're  up  to  something  again!" 

' '  Whadda  you  mean  ? ' ' 

"Diamonds  on  your  twenty  a  week!  It  can't  be 
done." 

His  gaze  lit  up  with  the  pointiness.  "I  tell  you, 
Marylin,  I  can  promise  you  headlights!" 

"How?" 

"Never  you  bother  your  little  head  how;  O.  K, 
though." 

"Haw,  Getaway?" 

"Oh  —  clean  —  if  that's  what's  worrying  you. 
Clean-cut." 

"It  is  worrying  me." 

"Saw  one  on  a  little  Jane  yesterday  out  to  Bel- 
mont  race  track.  A  fist-load  for  a  little  trick  like 
her.  And  sparkle!  Say,  every  time  that  little  Jane 
daubed  some  whitewash  on  her  little  nosie  she  gave 
that  grand  stand  the  squints.  That's  what  I'm 
going  to  do.  Sparkle  you  up!  With  a  diamond 
engagement  ring.  Oh  boy!  How's  that?  A  dia 
mond  engagement  ring!" 

"Oh,  Getaway!"  she  said,  with  her  hand  on  the 
flutter  of  her  throat  and  closing  her  eyes  as  if  to 

116 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

imprison  the  vision  against  her  lids.  "A  pure  white 
one  with  lots  of  fire  dancing  around  it."  And  little 
Marylin,  who  didn't  want  to  want  it,  actually  kissed 
the  bare  dot  on  her  left  ring  finger  where  she  could 
feel  the  burn  of  it,  and  there  in  the  crowded  street, 
where  he  knew  he  was  surest  of  his  privacy  with 
her,  he  stole  a  kiss  off  that  selfsame  finger,  too. 

"I'll  make  their  eyes  hang  out  on  their  cheeks  like 
grapes  when  they  see  you  coming  along,  Marylin." 

"I  love  them  because  they're  so  clear — and 
clean !  Mountain  water  that's  been  filtered  through 
pebbles." 

"Pebbles  is  right!  I'm  going  to  dike  you  out  in 
one  as  big  as  a  pebble.  And  poils!  Sa-y,  they're 
what  cost  the  spondulicks.  A  guy  showed  me  a 
string  of  little  ones  no  bigger  than  pimples.  Know 
what  ?  That  little  string  could  knock  the  three  spots 
out  of  a  thousand-dollar  bond — I  mean  bill!" 

It  was  then  that  something  flashed  out  of  Mary- 
lin's  face.  A  shade  might  have  been  lowered;  a 
candle  blown  out. 

"Getaway,"  she  said,  with  a  quick  little  dig  of 
fingers  into  his  forearm,  "you're  up  to  something!" 

"Snuff,  I  said." 

"What  did  you  mean  by  that  word,  'bond'?" 

"Who  built  a  high  fence  around  the  word  'bond '  ? " 

"Bonds!  All  that  stuff  in  the  newspapers  about 
those  messengers  disappearing  out  of  Wall  Street 
with — bonds!  Getaway,  are  you  mixed  up  in  that? 
Getaway!" 

"Well,  well!  I  like  that!  I  had  you  doped  out 
for  fair  and  warmer  to-day.  The  weather  prophet 
didn't  predict  no  brainstorm." 

117 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

"That's  not  answering." 

"Well,  whadda  you  know!  Miss  Sherlock  Holmes 
finds  a  corkscrew  in  the  wine  cellar  and  is  sore 
because  it's  crooked!" 

* '  Getaway — answer. ' ' 

"Whadda  you  want  me  to  answer,  Fairylin? 
That  I'm  the  master  mind  behind  the — " 

"It  worries  me  so!  You  up  in  Monkey's  room  so 
much  lately.  You  think  I  don't  know  it?  I  do! 
All  the  comings  and  goings  up  there.  Muggs 
Towers  sneaking  up  to  Monkey's  room  in  that 
messenger  boy's  suit  he  keeps  wearing  all  the  time 
now.  He's  no  more  messenger  boy  than  I  am. 
Getaway,  tell  me,  you  and  Muggs  up  in  Monkey's 
room  so  often?  Footsteps  up  there!  Yours!" 

"Gawalmighty!    Now  it's  my  footsteps!" 

"I  know  them!  Up  in  Monkey's  room,  right  over 
mine.  I  know  how  you  sneak  up  there  evenings 
after  you  leave  me.  It  don't  look  nice  your  going 
into  the  same  house  where  I  live,  Getaway,  even  if 
it  isn't  to  see  me.  It  don't  look  right  from  the 
outside!" 

"Nobody  can  ever  say  I  wanted  to  harm  a  hair 
of  your  little  head.  I  even  look  the  other  way  when 
I  pass  your  door.  That's  the  kind  of  a  modest 
violet  I  am." 

"It's  not  that,  but  the  looks.  That's  the  reason, 
I'll  bet,  if  the  truth's  known,  why  Monkey  squirmed 
himself  into  that  room  over  mine — to  hide  your 
comings  and  goings  as  if  they  was  to  see  me." 

"Nothing  of  the  kind!" 

"  Every  thing — up  there- — worries  me  so!  Mon 
key's  room  right  over  mine.  My  ceiling  so  full  of 

118 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

soft  footsteps  that  frighten  me.  I  know  your 
footsteps,  Getaway,  just  as  well  as  anything.  The 
ball-of  -your-f  oot — squeak !  The-ball-of -your-f  oot — 
squeak!" 

"Well,  that's  a  good  one!  The-ball-of -me-f oot— 
squeak!" 

"Everybody  tiptoeing!  Muggs!  Somebody 's 
stocking  feet!  Monkey's.  Steps  that  aren't  honest. 
All  on  my  ceiling.  Monkey  never  ought  to  have 
rented  a  room  in  a  respectable  house  like  Mrs. 
Granady's.  Nobody  but  genteel  young  fellows 
holding  down  genteel  jobs  ever  had  that  room  before. 
Monkey  passing  himself  off  as  Mr.  James  Pollard,  or 
whatever  it  is  he  calls  himself,  just  for  the  cover  of  a 
respectable  house — or  of  me,  for  all  I  know.  You 
could  have  knocked  me  down  with  a  feather  the 
first  time  I  met  him  in  the  hall.  If  I  did  right  I'd 
squeal." 

"You  would,  like  hell." 

"Of  course  I  wouldn't,  but  with  Mrs.  Granady 
trying  to  run  a  respectable  house,  only  the  right 
kind  of  young  fellows  and  girls  rooming  there,  it's 
not  fair.  Monkey  getting  his  nose  into  a  house  like 
that  and  hatching  God  knows  what !  Getaway,  what 
do  you  keep  doing  up  in  that  room — all  hours — you 
and  all  the  pussyfooters?" 

"That's  the  thanks  a  fellow  gets  for  letting  a 
straight  word  like  'marry'  slip  between  his  teeth; 
that's  the  thanks  a  fellow  gets  for  honest-to-God 
intentions  of  trying  to  get  his  girl  oilt  of  a  shirt 
factory  and  dike  her  out  in — " 

"But,  Getaway,  if  I  was  only  sure  it's  all  straight!" 

"Well,  if  that's  all  you  think  of  me—" 
119 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

"All  your  big-gun  talk  about  the  ring.  Of  course 
I — I'd  like  it.  How  could  a  girl  help  liking  it?  But 
only  if  it's  on  the  level.  Getaway — you  see,  I  hate 
to  act  suspicious  all  the  time,  but  all  your  new  silk 
shirts  and  now  the  new  checked  suit  and  all.  It 
don't  match  up  with  your  twenty-dollar  job  in  the 
Wall  Street  haberdashery." 

Then  Getaway  threw  out  one  of  his  feints  of  mock 
surprise.  "  Didn't  I  tell  you,  Fairylin?  Well, 
whadda  you  know  about  that  ?  I  didn't  tell  her,  and 
me  thinking  I  did." 

' '  What,  Getaway,  what  ? ' ' 

"Why,  I'm  not  working  there  any  more.  Why, 
Gawalmighty  couldn't  have  pleased  that  old  screw 
driver.  He  was  so  tight  the  dimes  in  his  pocket  used 
to  mildew  from  laying.  He  got  sore  as  a  pup  at  me 
one  day  just  because  I — " 

"Getaway,  you  never  told  me  you  lost  that  job 
that  I  got  for  you  out  of  the  newspaper!" 

"I  didn't  lose  it,  Marylin.  I  heard  it  when  it  fell. 
Jobs  is  like  vaccination,  they  take  or  they  don't." 

"They  never  take  with  you,  Getaway." 

"Don't  you  believe  it.    I'm  on  one  now — " 

"A  job?" 

"Aw,  not  the  way  you  mean.  Me  and  a  guy  got 
a  business  proposition  on.  If  it  goes  through,  I'll 
buy  you  a  marriage  license  engraved  on  solid  gold." 

"What  is  it,  then,  the  proposition?" 

"Can't  you  trust  me,  Marylin,  for  a  day  or  two, 
until  it  goes  through?  Sometimes  just  talking  about 
it  is  enough  to  put  the  jinx  on  a  good  thing." 

"  You  mean— " 

"I  mean  I'm  going  to  have  money  in  my  pockets." 

120 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

"What  kind  of  money?" 

"Real  money." 

"Honest  money?" 

" Honest- to-God  money.  And  I'm  going  to  dike 
you  out.  That's  my  idea.  Pink!  That's  the  color 
for  you.  A  pink  sash  and  slippers,  and  one  of  them 
hats  that  show  your  yellow  hair  right  through  it, 
and  a  lace  umbrella  and — " 

"And  streamers  on  the  hat !  I've  always  been  just 
crazy  for  streamers  on  a  hat." 

' '  Red-white-and-blue  ones ! ' ' 

"No,  just  pink.  Wide  ones  to  dangle  it  like  a 
basket." 

"And  slippers  with  real  diamond  buckles." 

"What  do  you  mean,  Getaway?  How  can  you 
give  me  real  diamond  shoe  buckles — " 

"There  you  go  again.  Didn't  you  promise  to 
trust  me  and  my  new  business  proposition?" 

"I  do,  only  you've  had  so  many — " 

"You  do — only!    Yah,  you  do,  only  you  don't!" 

"I —  You  see — Getaway — I  know  how  desperate 
you  can  be — when  you're  cornered.  I'll  never  forget 
how  you — you  nearly  killed  a  cop — once!  Oh, 
Getaway,  when  I  think  back,  that  time  you  got  into 
such  trouble  with — " 

"Leave  it  to  a  woman,  by  Jove!  to  spoil  a  fellow's 
good  name,  if  she  has  to  rub  her  ringers  in  old  soot 
to  do  it." 

"I — I  guess  it  is  from  seeing  so  much  around  me 
all  the  time  that  it's  in  me  so  to  suspect." 

"Oh,  it's  in  you  all  right.  Gawalmighty  knows 
that!" 

"You  see,  it's  because  I've  seen  so  much  all  my 

121 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

life.  That's  why  it's  been  so  grand  these  last  years 
since  I'm  alone  and — and  away  from  it.  Nothing 
to  fear.  My  own  little  room  and  my  own  little  job 
and  me  not  getting  heart  failure  every  time  I  recog 
nize  a  plain-clothes  man  on  the  beat  or  hear  a  night 
stick  on  the  sidewalk  jerk  me  out  of  my  sleep. 
Getaway,  don't  do  anything  bad.  You  had  one 
narrow  escape.  You're  finger-printed.  Headquarters 
wouldn't  give  you  the  benefit  of  a  doubt  if  there 
was  one.  Don't — Getaway!" 

"Yah,  stay  straight  and  you'll  stay  lonesome." 

"Money  wouldn't  make  no  difference  with  me, 
anyway,  if  everything  else  wasn't  all  right.  Nothing- 
can  be  pink  to  me  even  if  it  is  pink,  unless  it's 
honest.  That's  why  I  hold  back,  Getaway — there's 
things  in  you  I — can't  trust." 

"Yah,  fine  chance  of  you  holding  back  if  I  was  to 
come  rolling  up  to  your  door  in  a  six-cylinder — " 

"I  tell  you,  no!  If  I  was  that  way  I  wouldn't  be 
holding  down  the  same  old  job  at  the  factory.  I 
know  plenty  of  boys  who  turn  over  easy  money. 
Too  easy—" 

"Then  marry  me,  Marylin,  and  you'll  wear  dia 
monds.  In  a  couple  of  days,  when  this  goes  through, 
this  deal  with  the  fellows — oh,  honest  deal,  if  that's 
what  you're  opening  your  mouth  to  ask — I  can 
stand  up  beside  you  with  money  in  my  pockets. 
Twenty  bucks  to  the  pastor,  just  like  that!  Then 
you  can  pick  out  another  job  and  I'll  hold  it  down 
for  you.  Bet  your  life  I  will —  Oh — here,  Marylin 
— this  way — quick!" 

"Getaway,  why  did  you  turn  down  this  street  so 
all  of  a  sudden?  This  isn't  my  way  home." 

122 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

"It's  only  a  block  out  of  the  way.  Come  on! 
Don't  stand  gassing." 

' '  You-thought-that-f  ellow-on-the-corner-of-Dock- 
Street-might-be-a-plain-clothes-man ! " 

1 '  What  if  I  did  ?   Want  me  to  go  up  and  kiss  him  ? '  * 

' '  Why-should-you-care,  Getaway  ? ' ' 

"Don't." 

"But—" 

"Don't  believe  in  hugging  the  law,  though.  It's 
enough  when  it  hugs  you." 

"I  want  to  go  home,  Getaway." 

"Come  on.  I'll  buy  some  supper.  Steak  and 
French  frieds  and  some  French  pastry  with  a  cherry 
on  top  for  your  little  sweet  tooth.  That's  the  kind 
of  a  regular  guy  I  am." 

"No.    I  want  to  go  home." 

"All  right,  all  right!  I'm  taking  you  there, 
ain't  I?" 

"Straight." 

"Oh,  you'll  go  straight,  if  you  can't  go  that  way 
anywhere  but  home." 

They  trotted  the  little  detour  in  silence,  the 
corners  of  her  mouth  wilting,  he  would  have  declared, 
had  he  the  words,  like  a  field  flower  in  the  hands  of  a 
picnicker.  Marylin  could  droop  that  way,  so  sud 
denly  and  so  whitely  that  almost  a  second  could 
blight  her. 

"Now  you're  mad,  ain't  you?"  he  said,  ashamed 
to  be  so  quickly  conciliatory  and  trying  to  make  his 
voice  grate. 

"No,  Getaway — not  mad — only  I  guess — sad." 

She  stopped  before  her  rooming  house.  It  was  as 
long  and  as  lean  and  as  brown  as  a  witch,  and,  to 
9  123 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

the  more  fanciful,  something  even  of  the  riding  of  a 
broom  in  the  straddle  of  the  doorway,  with  an  empty 
flagpole  jutting  from  it.  And  then  there  was  the  cat, 
too — not  a  black  one  with  gold  eyes,  just  one  of  the 
city's  myriad  of  mackerel  ones,  with  chewed  ear  and 
a  skillful  crouch  for  the  leap  from  ash  to  garbage  can. 

"I'm  going  in  now,  Getaway." 

"Gowann!  Get  into  your  blue  dress  and  I'll 
blow  you  to  supper." 

"Not  to-night." 

"Mad?" 

"No.     I  said  only—" 

"Sad?" 

"No— tired— I  guess." 

"Please,  Marylin." 

' '  No.     Some  other  time. ' ' 

"When?    To-morrow?    It's  Saturday!    Coney?" 

"Oh!" 

He  thought  he  detected  the  flash  of  a  dimple. 
He  did.  Remember,  she  was  very  young  and,  being 
fanciful  enough  to  find  the  witch  in  the  face  of  her 
rooming  house,  the  waves  at  Coney  Island,  peanut 
cluttered  as  they  were  apt  to  be,  told  her  things. 
Silly,  unrepeatable  things.  Nonsense  things.  Little 
secret  goosefleshing  things.  Prettinesses.  And  then 
the  shoot  the  chutes!  That  ecstatic  leap  of  heart 
to  lips  and  the  feeling  of  folly  down  at  the  very  pit 
of  her.  Marylin  did  like  the  shoot  the  chutes ! 

"All  right,  Getaway — to-morrow — Coney!" 

He  did  not  conceal  his  surge  of  pleasure,  grasping 
her  small  hand  in  both  his.  "Good  girlie!" 

"Good  night,  Getaway,"  she  said,  but  with  the 
inflection  of  something  left  unsaid. 

124 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

He  felt  the  unfinished  intonation,  like  a  rocket 
that  had  never  dropped  its  stick,  and  started  up  the 
steps  after  her. 

"What  is  it,  Marylin?" 

"Nothing,"  she  said  and  ran  in. 

The  window  in  her  little  rear  room  with  the  zigzag 
of  fire  escape  across  it  was  already  full  of  dusk. 
She  took  off  her  hat,  a  black  straw  with  a  little 
pink-cotton  rose  on  it,  and,  rubbing  her  brow  where 
it  had  left  a  red  rut,  sat  down  beside  the  window. 
There  were  smells  there  from  a  city  bouquet  of 
frying  foods;  from  a  pool  of  old  water  near  a  drain 
pipe;  from  the  rear  of  a  butcher  shop.  Slops. 
Noises,  too.  Babies,  traffic,  whistles,  oaths,  bar- 
terings,  women,  strife,  life.  On  her  very  own  ceiling 
the  whisper  of  footsteps — of  restless  comings  and 
goings  —  stealthy  comings  and  goings  —  and  then 
after  an  hour,  suddenly  and  ever  so  softly,  the  ball- 
of-a-foot — squeak !  The-ball-of-a-foot — squeak ! 

Marylin  knew  that  step. 

And  yet  she  sat,  quiet.  A  star  had  come  out. 
Looking  up  at  the  napkin  of  sky  let  in  through  the 
walls  of  the  vertical  city,  Marylin  had  learned  to 
greet  it  almost  every  clear  evening.  It  did  some 
thing  for  her.  It  was  a  little  voice.  A  little  kiss.  A 
little  upside  down  pool  of  light  without  a  spill.  A 
little  of  herself  up  there  in  that  beyond — that  little 
napkin  of  beyond  that  her  eyes  had  the  lift  to  see. 

Who  are  you,  whose  neck  has  never  ached  from 
nine  hours  a  day,  six  days  a  week,  of  bending  over 
the  blue-denim  pleat  that  goes  down  the  front  of 
men's  shirts,  to  quiver  a  supersensitive,  supercilious, 

125 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

and  superior  nose  over  what,  I  grant  you,  may  appear 
on  the  surface  to  be  the  omelet  of  vulgarities  fried  up 
for  you  on  the  gladdest,  maddest  strip  of  carnival  in 
the  world  ? 

But  it  is  simpler  to  take  on  the  cold  glaze  of  sophis 
tication  than  to  remain  simple.  When  the  eyelids 
become  weary,  it  is  as  if  little  red  dancing  shoes 
were  being  wrapped  away  forever,  or  a  very  tight 
heartstring  had  suddenly  sagged,  and  when  plucked 
at  could  no  longer  plong. 

To  Marylin,  whose  neck  very  often  ached  clear 
down  into  her  shoulder  blade  and  up  into  a  bandeau 
around  her  brow,  and  to  whom  city  walls  were 
sometimes  like  slaps  confronting  her  whichever  way 
she  turned,  her  enjoyment  of  Coney  Island  was  as 
uncomplex  as  A  B  C.  Untortured  by  any  aware 
nesses  of  relative  values,  too  simple  to  strive  to  keep 
simple,  unself -conscious,  and  with  a  hungry  heart, 
she  was  not  a  spectator,  half  ashamed  of  being 
amused.  She  was  Coney  Island!  Her  heart  a 
shoot  the  chutes  for  sheer  swoops  of  joy,  her  eyes 
full  of  confetti  points,  the  surf  creaming  no  higher 
than  her  vitality. 

And  it  was  so  the  evening  following,  as  she  came 
dancing  down  the  kicked-up  sand  of  the  beach,  in  a 
little  bright-blue  frock,  mercerized  silk,  if  you  please, 
with  very  brief  sleeves  that  ended  right  up  in  the 
jolliest  part  of  her  arm,  with  a  half  moon  of  vac 
cination  winking  out  roguishly  beneath  a  finish  of 
ribbon  bow,  and  a  white-canvas  sport  hat  with  a 
jockey  rosette  to  cap  the  little  climax  of  her,  and 
by  no  means  least,  a  metal  coin  purse,  with  springy 
insides  designed  to  hold  exactly  fifty  cents  in  nickels. 

126 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

Once  on  the  sand,  which  ran  away,  tickling 
each  step  she  took,  her  spirits,  it  must  be  admitted, 
went  just  a  little  crazily  off.  The  window,  you 
see,  where  Marylin  sewed  her  buttonholes  six  days 
the  week,  faced  a  brick  wall  that  peeled  with  an 
old  scrofula  of  white  paint.  Coney  Island  faced  a 
world  of  sky.  So  that  when  she  pinched  Getaway's 
nose  in  between  the  lips  of  her  coin  purse  and  he, 
turning  a  double  somersault  right  in  his  checked 
suit,  landed  seated  in  a  sprawl  of  mock  daze,  off  she 
went  into  peals  of  laughter  only  too  ready  to  be 
released. 

He  bought  her  a  wooden  whirring  machine,  an 
instrument  of  noise  that,  because  it  was  not  utilitar 
ian,  became  a  toy  of  delicious  sound. 

They  rode  imitation  ocean  waves  at  five  cents  a 
voyage,  their  only  mal  de  mer,  regret  when  it  was 
over.  He  bought  her  salt-water  taffy,  and  when  the 
little  red  cave  of  her  mouth  became  too  ludicrously 
full  of  the  pully  stuff  he  tried  to  kiss  its  state  of 
candy  paralysis,  and  instantly  she  became  sober 
and  would  have  no  more  of  his  nonsense. 

" Getaway,"  she  cried,  snapping  fingers  of  inspira 
tion,  "let's  go  in  bathing!" 

"I'll  say  we  will!" 

No  sooner  said  than  done.  In  rented  bathing 
suits,  unfastidious,  if  you  will,  but,  pshaw!  with  the 
ocean  for  wash  day,  who  minded !  Hers  a  little  blue 
wrinkly  one  that  hit  her  far  too  far,  below  the  knees, 
but  her  head  flowered  up  in  a  polka-dotted  turban, 
that  well  enough  she  knew  bound  her  up  prettily, 
and  her  arms  were  so  round  with  that  indescribable 
sof tiness  of  youth !  Getaway,  whose  eyes  could  focus 

127 


THE   VERTICAL    CITY 

a  bit  when  he  looked  at  them,  set  up  a  leggy  dance 
at  sight  of  her.  He  shocked  her  a  bit  in  his  cheap 
cotton  trunks — woman's  very  old  shock  to  the 
knobby  knees  and  hairy  arms  of  the  beach.  But 
they  immediately  ran,  hand  in  hand,  down  the 
sand  and  fizz !  into  the  grin  of  a  breaker. 

Marylin  with  her  face  wet  and  a  fringe  of  hair, 
like  a  streak  of  seaweed,  down  her  cheek !  Getaway, 
shivery  and  knobbier  than  ever,  pushing  great  palms 
of  water  at  her  and  she  back  at  him,  only  less 
skillfully  her  five  fingers  spread  and  inefficient. 
Once  in  the  water,  he  caught  and  held  her  close, 
and  yet,  for  the  wonder  of  it,  almost  reverentially 
close,  as  if  what  he  would  claim  for  himself  he  must 
keep  intact. 

11  Marry  me,  Marylin,"  he  said,  with  all  the  hubbub 
of  the  ocean  about  them. 

She  reached  for  some  foam  that  hissed  out  before 
she  could  touch  it. 

" That's  you,"  he  said.  "Now  you  are  there,  and 
now  you  aren't." 

"I  wish,"  she  said — "oh,  Getaway,  there's  so 
much  I  wish!" 

"What  do  you  wish?" 

She  looked  off  toward  the  immensity  of  sea  and 
sky.  "I —  Oh,  I  don't  know!  Being  here  makes 
me  wish —  Something  as  beautiful  as  out  there  is 
what  I  wish." 

"Out  where?" 

"There." 

"  I  don't  see— " 

"You—wouldn't."      ,v 

And  then,  because  neither  pf  them  could  swim,  he 

128 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

began  chasing  her  through  shallow  water,  and  in  the 
kicked-up  spray  of  their  own  merriment  they 
emerged  finally,  dripping  and  slinky,  the  hairs  of  his 
forearms  lashed  flat,  and  a  little  drip  of  salt  water 
running  off  the  tip  of  her  chin. 

Until  long  after  the  sun  went  down  they  lay 
drying  on  the  sand,  her  hair  spread  in  a  lovely 
amber  flare,  and,  stretched  full  length  on  his  stomach 
beside  her,  he  built  a  little  grave  of  sand  for  her 
feet.  And  the  crowd  thinned,  and  even  before  the 
sun  dipped  a  faint  young  moon,  almost  as  if  wearing 
a  veil,  came  up  against  the  blue.  They  were  quiet 
now  with  pleasant  fatigue,  and,  propped  up  on  his 
elbows,  he  spilled  little  rills  of  sand  from  one  fist 
into  the  other. 

' '  Gee !  you're  pretty,  Marylin ! " 

"Are  I,  Getaway?" 

"You  know  you  are.  You  wasn't  born  with  one 
eye  shut  and  the  other  blind." 

"Honest,  I  don't  know.  Sometimes  I  look  in  the 
mirror  and  hope  so." 

"You've  had  enough  fellows  tell  you  so." 

"Yes,  but — but  not  the  kind  of  fellows  that  mean 
by  pretty  what  I  mean  by  pretty." 

"Well,  this  here  guy  means  what  you  mean  by 
pretty." 

"What  do  you  mean  by  pretty,  Getaway?" 

"Pep.  Peaches.  Cream.  Teeth.  Yellow  hair. 
Arms.  Le  —  those  little  holes  in  your  cheeks. 
Dimples.  What  do  I  mean  by  pretty?  I  mean  you 
by  pretty.  Ain't  that  what  you  want  me  to  mean  by 
pretty?" 

"Yes— and  no— " 

129 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

"Well,  what  the—" 

"It's  all  right,  Getaway.  It's  fine  to  be  pretty, 
but — not  enough — somehow.  I — I  can't  explain  it 
to  you — to  anybody.  I  guess  pretty  isn't  the  word. 
It's  beauty  I  mean." 

"All  right,  then,  anything  your  little  heart  desires 
— beauty." 

"The  ocean  beauty  out  there,  I  mean.  Some 
thing  that  makes  you  hurt  and  want  to  hurt  more 
and  more.  Beauty,  Getaway.  It's  something  you 
understand  or  something  you  don't.  It  can't  be 
talked.  It  sounds  silly." 

"Well,  then,  whistle  it!" 

" It  has  to  be  felt." 

"Feel  me,"  he  said,  laying  her  arm  to  his  bare 
bicep.  "Some  little  gladiator,  eh?  Knock  the 
stuffings  out  of  any  guy  that  tried  to  take  you  away 
from  me." 

She  turned  her  head  on  its  flare  of  drying  hair 
away  from  him.  The  beach  was  all  but  quiet  and 
the  haze  of  the  end  of  day  in  the  air,  almost  in  her 
eyes,  too. 

"Oh,  Getaway!"  she  said,  on  a  sigh,  and  again, 
"Getaway!" 

His  reserve  with  her,  at  which  he  himself  was  the 
first  to  marvel,  went  down  a  little  then  and  he 
seized  her  bare  arm,  kissing  it,  almost  sinking  his 
teeth.  The  curve  of  her  chin  down  into  her  throat, 
as  she  turned  her  head,  had  maddened  him. 

"Quit,"  she  said. 

"Never  you  mind.  You'll  wear  diamonds,"  he 
said,  in  his  sole  phraseology  of  promise.  ''Will  you 
get  sore  if  I  ask  you  something,  Fairy lin?" 

130 


THE   VERTICAL    CITY 


"What?" 

11  Want  one  now?" 


"Want  what?" 

"A  diamond." 

"No,"  she  said.  "When  I'm  out  here  I  quit 
wanting  things  like  that." 

' '  Fine  chance  a  fellow  has  to  warm  up  to  you ! " 

"Getaway!-" 

"What?" 

"What  did  you  do  last  night,  after  you  walked 
home  with  me?" 

"When?" 

"You  know  when." 

"Why,  bless  your  heart,  I  went  home,  Fairy lin!" 

"Please,  Getaway—" 

"Home,  Fairy." 

"You  were  up  in  Monkey's  room  last  night  about 
eleven.  Now  think,  Getaway!" 

"Aw  now — " 

"You  were." 

"Aw  now — " 

"Nobody  can  fool  me  on  your  step.  You  tiptoed 
for  all  you  were  worth,  but  I  knew  it!  The-ball-of 
your-f  oot — squeak !  The-ball-of -your  foot — squeak ! ' ' 

"Sure  enough,  now  you  mention  it,  maybe  for  a 
minute  around  eleven,  but  only  for  a  minute—" 

"Please,  Getaway,  don't  lie.  It  was  for  nearly 
all  night.  Comings  and  goings  on  my  ceiling  until 
I  couldn't  sleep,  not  because  they  were  so  noisy, 
but  because  they  were  so  soft.  Like  ugly  whispers. 
Is  Monkey  the  friend  you  got  the  deal  on  with, 
Getaway?" 

"We  just  sat  up  there  talking  old  times — •" 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

"And  Muggs,  about  eleven  o'clock,  sneaking  up 
through  the  halls,  dressed  like  the  messenger  boy 
again.  I  saw  him  when  I  peeked  out  of  the  door  to 
see  who  it  was  tiptoeing.  Getaway,  for  God's 
sake—" 

He  closed  over  her  wrist  then,  his  face  extremely 
pointed.  It  was  a  bony  face,  so  narrow  that  the 
eyes  and  the  cheek  bones  had  to  be  pitched  close, 
and  his  black  hair,  usually  so  shiny,  was  down  in  a 
bang  now,  because  it  was  damp,  and  to  Marylin 
there  was  something  sinister  in  that  dip  of  bang 
which  frightened  her. 

"What  you  don't  know  don't  hurt  you.  You 
hear  that?  Didn't  I  tell  you  that  after  a  few  days 
this  business  deal — business,  get  that  ? — will  be  over. 
Then  I'm  going  to  hold  down  any  old  job  your  heart 
desires.  But  first  I'm  going  to  have  money  in  my 
pockets!  That's  the  only  way  to  make  this  old 
world  sit  up  and  take  notice.  Spondulicks!  Then 
I'm  going  to  carry  you  off  and  get  spliced.  See? 
Real  money.  Diamonds.  If  you  weren't  so  touchy, 
maybe  you'd  have  diamonds  sooner  than  you  think. 
Want  one  now?" 

"Getaway,  I  know  you're  up  to  something.  You 
and  Monkey  and  Muggs  are  tied  up  with  those  Wall 
Street  bond  getaways." 

"For  the  luvagod,  cut  that  talk  here!  First 
thing  I  know  you'll  have  me  in  a  brainstorm  too." 

"Those  fake  messenger  boys  that  get  themselves 
hired  and,  instead  of  delivering  the  bonds  from  one 
office  to  another — disappear  with  them.  Muggs 
isn't  wearing  that  messenger's  uniform  for  nothing. 
You  and  Monkey  are  working  with  him  under 

132 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

cover  on  something.  You  can't  pass  a  cop  any  more 
without  tightening  up.  I  can  feel  it  when  I  have 
your  arm.  You've  got  that  old  over-your-shoulder 
look  to  you,  Getaway.  My  father — had  it.  My — 
mother — too.  Getaway ! ' ' 

"By  gad!  you  can't  beat  a  woman!" 

"You  don't  deny  it." 

"I  do!" 

"Oh,  Getaway,  I'm  glad  then,  glad!" 

"  Over-the-shoulder  look.  Why,  if  I'd  meet  a 
plain-clothes  this  minute  I'd  go  up  and  kiss  him— 
with  my  teeth  in  his  ear.  That's  how  much  I  got  to 
be  afraid  of." 

"Oh,  Getaway,  I'm  so  glad!" 

"Well,  then,  lay  off—" 

"Getaway,  you  jumped  then!  Like  somebody 
had  hit  you,  and  it  was  only  a  kid  popping  a  paper 
bag." 

"You  get  on  my  nerves.  You'd  make  a  cat  nerv 
ous,  with  your  suspecting!  The  more  a  fellow  tries 
to  do  for  a  girl  like  you  the  less —  Look  here  now, 
you  got  to  get  the  hell  out  of  my  business." 

She  did  not  reply,  but  lay  to  the  accompaniment 
of  his  violent  nervousness  and  pinchings  into  the 
sand,  with  her  face  still  away  from  him,  while  the 
dusk  deepened  and  the  ocean  quieted. 

After  a  while:  "Now,  Marylin,  don't  be  sore.  I 
may  be  a  rotten  egg  some  ways,  but  when  it  comes  to 
you,  I'm  there." 

"I'm  not  sore,  Getaway,"  she  said,  with  her 
voice  still  away  from  him.  "Only  I —  Let's  not 
talk  for  a  minute.  It's  so  quiet  out  here — so  full  of 
rest." 

i33 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

He  sat,  plainly  troubled,  leaning  back  on  the 
palms  of  his  hands  and  dredging  his  toes  into  the 
sand.  In  the  violet  light  the  tender  line  of  her  chin 
to  her  throat  still  teased  him. 

Down  farther  along  the  now  deserted  beach  a 
youth  in  a  bathing  suit  was  playing  a  harmonica, 
his  knees  hunched  under  his  chin,  his  mouth  and 
hand  sliding  at  cross  purposes  along  the  harp.  That 
was  the  silhouette  of  him  against  a  clean  sky, 
almost  Panlike,  as  if  his  feet  might  be  cloven. 

What  he  played,  if  it  had  any  key  at  all,  was 
rather  in  the  mood  of  Chopin's  Nocturne  in  D  flat 
major.  A  little  sigh  for  the  death  of  a  day,  a  sob 
for  the  beauty  of  that  death,  and  a  hope  and  ecstasy 
for  the  new  day  yet  unborn — all  of  that  on  a  little 
throbbing  mouth  organ. 

'Getaway,"  cried  Marylin,  and  sat  up,  spilling 
sand,  "that's  it!  That's  what  I  meant  a  while  ago. 
Hear?  It  can't  be  talked.  That's  it  on  the  mouth 
organ!" 

"It?" 

"It!  Yes,  like  I  said.  Somebody  has  to  feel  it 
inside  of  him,  just  like  I  do,  before  he  can  under 
stand.  Can't  you  feel  it?  Please!  Listen." 

"Aw,  that's  an  old  jew's-harp.  I'll  buy  you  one. 
How's  that?" 

"All  right,  I  guess,"  she  said,  starting  off  sud 
denly  toward  the  bathhouse. 

He  was  relieved  that  she  had  thrown  off  the 
silence. 

"Ain't  mad  any  more,  are  you,  Marylin?" 

"No,  Getaway — not  mad." 

"Mustn't  get  fussy  that  way  with  me,  Marylin. 


THE    VERTICAL   CITY 

It  scares  me  off.  I've  had  something  to  show  you 
all  day,  but  you  keep  scaring  me  off." 

"What  is  it?"  she  said,  tiptoe. 

His  mouth  drew  up  to  an  oblique.    "You  know." 

"No,  I  don't." 

"Maybe  I'll  tell  you  and  maybe  I  won't,"  he  cried, 
scooping  up  a  handful  of  sand  and  spraying  her. 
"What  '11  you  give  me  if  I  tell?" 

"Why— nothing." 

"Want  to  know?" 

But  at  the  narrowing  something  in  his  eyes  she 
sidestepped  him,  stooping  down  at  the  door  of  her 
bathhouse  for  a  last  scoop  of  sand  at  him. 

"No,"  she  cried,  her  hair  blown  like  spray  and 
the  same  breeze  carrying  her  laughter,  guiltless  of 
mood,  out  to  sea. 

On  the  way  home,  though,  for  the  merest  second, 
there  recurred  the  puzzling  quirk  in  her  thought 
lessness. 

In  the  crush  of  the  electric  train,  packed  tightly 
into  the  heart  of  the  most  yammering  and  petulant 
crowd  in  the  world — home-going  pleasure  seekers — 
a  youth  rose  to  give  her  his  seat.  A  big,  beach- 
tanned  fellow  with  a  cowlick  of  hair,  when  he 
tipped  her  his  hat,  standing  up  off  his  right  brow 
like  a  little  apostrophe  to  him,  and  blue  eyes  so  very 
wide  apart,  and  so  clear,  that  they  ran  back  into  his 
head  like  aisles  with  little  lakes  shining  at  the  ends 
of  them. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Marylin,  the  infinitesimal 
second  while  his  hat  and  cowlick  lifted,  her  own 
gaze  seeming  to  run  down  those  avenues  of  his 
eyes  for  a  look  into  the  pools  at  the  back. 


THE   VERTICAL    CITY 

"That  was  it,  too,  Getaway!  The  thing  that 
fellow  looked — that  I  couldn't  say.  He  said  it — 
with  his  eyes." 

"Who?" 

"That  fellow  who  gave  me  this  seat." 

"I'll  break  his  face  if  he  goo-goos  you,"  said 
Getaway,  who  by  this  time  had  a  headache  and 
whose  feet  had  fitted  reluctantly  back  into  patent 
leather. 

But  inexplicably,  even  to  herself,  that  night,  in 
the  shadow  of  the  stoop  of  her  witch  of  a  rooming 
house,  she  let  him  kiss  her  lips.  His  first  of  her — 
her  first  to  any  man.  It  may  have  been  that  sud 
denly  she  was  so  extremely  tired — tired  of  the  lay 
of  the  week  ahead,  suggested  by  the  smells  and  the 
noises  and  the  consciousness  of  that  front  box  pleat. 

The  little  surrender,  even  though  she  drew  back 
immediately,  was  wine  to  him  and  as  truly  an 
intoxicant. 

"Marylin,"  he  cried,  wild  for  her  lips  again,  "I 
can't  be  held  off  much  longer.  I'm  straight  with 
you,  but  I'm  human,  too." 

"Don't,  Getaway,  not  here!  To-morrow — maybe." 

"I'm  crazy  for  you!" 

"Go  home  now,  Getaway." 

"Yes — but  just  one  more — " 

"Promise  me  you'll  go  straight  home  from  here — 
to  bed." 

"I  promise.  Marylin,  one  more.  One  little  more. 
Your  lips — " 

"No,  no — not  now.     Go — " 

Suddenly,  by  a  quirk  in  the  dark,  there  was  a 
flash  of  something  down  Marylin 's  bare  third 

136 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

finger,  so  hurriedly  and  so  rashly  that  it  scraped 
the  flesh. 

' ' That's  for  you !  I've  been  afraid  all  day.  Touchy ! 
Didn't  I  tell  you?  Diamonds!  Now  will  you  kiss 
me  ?  Now  will  you  ? ' ' 

In  the  shadow  of  where  she  stood,  looking  down, 
it  was  as  if  she  gazed  into  a  pool  of  fire  that  was 
reaching  in  flame  clear  up  about  her  head,  and 
everywhere  in  the  conflagration  Getaway's  trium 
phant  ''Now  will  you!  Now  will  you!" 

''Getaway/'  she  cried,  flecking  her  hand  as  if  it 
burned,  "where  did  you  get  this?" 

"It's  for  you,  Fairylin,  and  more  like  it  coming. 
It  weighs  a  carat  and  a  half.  That  stone's  worth 
more  than  a  sealskin  jacket.  You're  going  to  have 
one  of  those,  too.  Real  seal!  Now  are  you  sore  at 
me  any  more?  Now  you've  a  swell  kick  coming, 
haven't  you?  Now!  Now!" 

"Getaway,"  she  cried  behind  her  lit  hand, 
because  her  palm  was  to  her  mouth  and  above  it 
her  eyes  showing  the  terror  in  their  whites,  "where 
did  you  get  this?" 

"There!"  he  said,  and  kissed  her  hotly  and 
squarely  on  the  lips. 

Somehow,  with  the  ring  off  her  finger  and  in  a 
little  pool  of  its  light  as  it  lay  at  his  feet,  where  he 
stood  dazed  on  the  sidewalk,  Marylin  was  up  the 
stoop,  through  the  door,  up  two  flights,  and  through 
her  own  door,  slamming  it,  locking  it,  and  into  her 
room,  rubbing  and  half  crying  over  her  left  third 
finger  where  the  flash  had  been. 

She  was  frightened,  because  for  all  of  an  hour  she 
sat  on  the  end  of  the  cot  in  her  little  room  trembling 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

and  with  her  palms  pressed  into  her  eyes  so  tightly 
that  the  darkness  spun.  There  was  quick  connection 
in  Marylin  between  what  was  emotional  and  what 
was  merely  sensory.  She  knew,  from  the  sickness 
at  the  very  pit  of  her,  how  sick  were  her  heart  and 
her  soul — and  how  afraid. 

She  undressed  in  the  dark — a  pale  darkness 
relieved  by  a  lighted  window  across  the  areaway. 
The  blue  mercerized  dress  she  slid  over  a  hanger, 
covering  it  with  one  of  her  cotton  nightgowns  and 
putting  it  into  careful  place  behind  the  cretonne 
curtain  that  served  her  as  clothes  closet.  Her 
petticoat,  white,  with  a  rill  of  lace,  she  folded  away. 
And  then,  in  her  bare  feet  and  a  pink-cotton  night 
gown  with  a  blue  bird  machine-stitched  on  the 
yoke,  stood  cocked  to  the  hurry  of  indistinct  foot 
steps  across  her  ceiling,  and  in  the  narrow  slit  of 
hallway  outside  her  door,  where  the  stairs  led  up 
still  another  flight,  the-ball -of -a-foot — squeak!  The 
sharp  crack  of  a  voice.  Running. 

"Getaway!"  cried  Marylin's  heart,  almost  suffo 
cating  her  with  a  dreadful  spasm  of  intuition. 

It  was  all  so  quick.  In  the  flash  of  her  flung-open 
door,  as  her  head  in  its  amber  cloud  leaned  out, 
Getaway,  bending  almost  double  over  the  upper 
banister,  his  lips  in  his  narrow  face  back  to  show  a 
white  terribleness  of  strain  that  lingered  in  the 
memory,  hurled  out  an  arm  suddenly  toward  two 
men  mounting  the  steps  of  the  flight  below  him. 

There  was  a  shot  then,  and  on  the  lower  flight  one 
of  the  men,  with  an  immediate  red  mouth  opening 
slowly  in  his  neck,  slid  downstairs  backward,  face  up. 

Suddenly,  from  a  crouching  position  beside  her 
138 


THE   VERTICAL   CITY 

door,  the  second  figure  shot  forward  now,  with 
ready  and  perfect  aim  at  the  already -beginning-to- 
be-nerveless  figure  of  Getaway  hanging  over  the 
banister  with  the  smoking  pistol. 

By  the  reaching  out  of  her  right  hand  Marylin 
could  have  deflected  that  perfect  aim.  In  fact,  her 
arm  sprang  toward  just  that  reflex  act,  then  stayed 
itself  with  the  jerk  of  one  solid  body  avoiding  col 
lision  with  another. 

So  much  quicker  than  it  takes  in  the  telling  there 
marched  across  Marylin's  sickened  eyes  this  frieze: 
Her  father  trailing  dead  from  the  underslinging  of  a 
freight  car.  That  moment  when  a  uniform  had 
stepped  in  from  the  fire  escape  across  the  bolt  of 
Brussels  lace;  her  mother's  scream,  like  a  plunge 
into  the  heart  of  a  rapier.  Uniforms — contem 
plating.  On  street  corners.  Opposite  houses. 
Those  four  fingers  peeping  over  each  of  her  father's 
shoulders  in  the  courtroom.  Getaway !  His  f oxlike 
face  leaner.  Meaner.  Black  mask.  Electric  chair. 
Volts.  Ugh — volts !  God — you  know — best — help — 

When  the  shot  came  that  sent  Getaway  pitching 
forward  down  the  third-floor  flight  she  was  on  her 
own  room  floor  in  a  long  and  merciful  faint. 

Marylin  had  not  reached  out. 

Time  passed.  Whole  rows  of  days  of  buttonholes 
down  pleats  that  were  often  groped  at  through  tears. 
Heavy  tears  like  magnifying  glasses.  And  then, 
with  that  gorgeous  and  unassailable  resiliency  of 
youth,  lighter  tears.  Fewer  tears.  Few  tears.  No 
tears. 

Under  the  cretonne  curtain,  though,  the  blue 
10  J39 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

mercerized  frock  hung  unworn,  and  in  its  dark 
drawer  remained  the  petticoat  with  its  rill  of  lace. 
But  one  night,  with  a  little  catch  in  her  throat  (it 
was  the  last  of  her  sobs),  she  took  out  the  sport  hat, 
and  for  no  definite  reason  began  to  turn  the  jockey 
rosette  to  the  side  where  the  sun  had  not  faded  it. 

These  were  quiet  evenings  in  her  small  room. 
All  the  ceiling  agitation  had  long  ago  ceased  since 
the  shame  of  the  raided  room  above,  and  Muggs,  in 
his  absurd  messenger's  suit,  and  Monkey  marching 
down  the  three  flights  to  the  clanking  of  steel  at  the 
wrists. 

There  were  new  footsteps  now.  Steps  that  she 
had  also  learned  to  know,  but  pleasantly.  They 
marched  out  so  regularly  of  mornings,  invariably 
just  as  she  was  about  to  hook  her  skirtband  or  pull 
on  her  stockings.  They  came  home  so  patly  again 
at  seven,  about  as  she  sat  herself  down  to  a  bit  of 
sewing  or  washing-out.  They  went  to  bed  so 
pleasantly.  Thud,  on  the  floor,  and  then,  after  the 
expectant  interval  of  unlacing,  thud  again.  They 
were  companionable,  those  footsteps,  almost  like 
reverential  marching  on  the  grave  of  her  heart. 

Marylin  reversed  the  rosette,  and  as  the  light 
began  to  go  sat  down  beside  her  window,  idly, 
looking  up.  There  was  the  star  point  in  her  patch 
of  sky,  eating  its  way  right  through  the  purple  like  a 
diamond,  and  her  ache  over  it  was  so  tangible  that 
it  seemed  to  her  she  could  almost  lift  the  hurt  out 
of  her  heart,  as  if  it  were  a  little  imprisoned  bird. 
And  as  it  grew  darker  there  came  two  stars,  and  three, 
and  nine,  and  finally  the  sixty  hundred. 

Then  from  the  zig  of  the  fire  escape  above,  before 

140 


THE    VERTICAL    CITY 

it  twisted  down  into  the  zag  of  hers,  there  came  to 
Marylin,  through  the  medley  of  city  silences  and 
the  tears  in  her  heart,  this  melody,  on  a  jew's-harp : 

If  it  had  any  key  at  all,  it  was  in  the  mood  of 
Chopin's  Nocturne  in  D  flat  major.  A  little  sigh 
for  the  death  of  a  day,  a  sob  for  the  beauty  of  that 
death,  and  the  throb  of  an.  ecstasy  for  the  new  day 
not  yet  born. 

Looking  up  against  the  sheer  wall  of  the  vertical 
city,  on  the  ledge  of  fire  escape  above  hers,  and  in 
the  yellow  patch  of  light  thrown  out  from  the  room 
behind,  a  youth,  with  his  knees  hunched  up  under 
his  chin,  and  his  mouth  and  hand  moving  at  cross 
purposes,  was  playing  the  harmonica. 

Wide  apart  were  his  eyes,  and  blue,  so  that  while 
she  gazed  up,  smiling,  as  he  gazed  down,  smiling,  it 
was  almost  as  if  she  ran  up  the  fire  escape  through 
the  long  clear  lanes  of  those  eyes,  for  a  dip  into  the 
little  twin  lakes  at  the  back  of  them. 

And — why,  didn't  you  know? — there  was  a  lift  of 
cowlick  to  the  right  side  of  his  front  hair,  as  he  sat 
there  playing  in  the  twilight,  that  was  exactly  the 
shape  of  an  apostrophe! 


THE   SMUDGE 


THE  SMUDGE 

IN  the  bleak  little  graveyard  of  Hattie  Bertch's 
dead  hopes,  dead  loves,  and  dead  ecstasies,  more 
than  one  headstone  had  long  since  begun  to  sag  and 
the  wreaths  of  bleeding  heart  to  shrivel. 

That  was  good,  because  the  grave  that  is  kept 
bubbly  with  tears  is  a  tender,  quivering  thing, 
almost  like  an  amputated  bit  of  self  that  still  aches 
with  threads  of  life. 

Even  over  the  mound  of  her  dead  ambitions, 
which  grave  she  had  dug  with  the  fingers  of  her 
heart,  Hattie  could  walk  now  with  unsensitive  feet. 
It  had  become  dry  clay  with  cracks  in  it  like  sar 
donic  smiles. 

Smiles.  That  was  the  dreadful  part,  because  the 
laugh  where  there  have  been  tears  is  not  a  nice 
laugh,  and  Hattie  could  sit  among  the  headstones  of 
her  dead  dreams  now  and  laugh.  But  not  horridly. 
Just  drearily. 

There  was  one  grave,  Heart's  Desire,  that  was 
still  a  little  moist.  But  it,  too,  of  late  years,  had 
begun  to  sink  in,  like  an  old  mouth  with  receding 
gums,  as  if  the  very  teeth  of  a  smiling  dream  had 
rotted.  They  had. 

Hattie,  whose  heart's  desire  had  once  been  to 
play  Juliet,  played  maids  now.  Buxom  negro  ones, 


THE    SMUDGE 

with  pale  palms,  white  eyes,  and  the  beat  of  kettle 
drums  somewhere  close  to  the  cuticle  of  the  balls  of 
her  feet. 

She  was  irrevocably  down  on  managers'  and 
agents*  lists  as  "comedy  black."  Countless  the 
premiers  she  had  opened  to  the  fleck  of  a  duster! 
Hattie  came  high,  as  maids  go.  One  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars  a  week  and  no  road  engagements.  She 
dressed  alone.  Her  part  in  "Love  Me  Long"  had 
been  especially  written  in  for  the  sake  of  the  peculiar 
kind  of  comedy  relief  she  could  bring  to  it.  A  light 
roar  of  recognition  swept  the  audience  at  her  en 
trance.  Once  in  a  while,  a  handclap.  So  Hattie, 
whose  heart's  desire  had  once  been  to  play  Juliet, 
played  maids  now.  Buxomly. 

And  this  same  Hattie,  whose  heart's  desire 
had  once  been  to  kiss  Love,  but  whose  lips  were 
still  a  little  twisted  with  the  taste  of  clay,  could 
kiss  only  Love's  offspring  now.  But  not  bitterly. 
Thanksgi  vingly . 

Love's  offspring  was  Marcia.  Sixteen  and  the 
color  and  odor  of  an  ivory  fan  that  has  lain  in 
frangipani.  And  Hattie  could  sometimes  poke  her 
tongue  into  her  cheek  over  this  bit  of  whimsy: 

It  was  her  well-paid  effort  in  the  burnt  cork  that 
made  possible,  for  instance,  the  frill  of  real  lace 
that  lay  to  the  low  little  neck  of  Marcia 's  first  party 
dress,  as  if  blown  there  in  sea  spume. 

Out  of  the  profits  of  Hattie's  justly  famous  Brown 
Cold  Cream  —  Guaranteed  Color  -  fast  —  Mulatto, 
Medium,  Chocolate,  had  come  Marcia's  ermine  muff 
and  tippet;  the  enamel  toilet  set;  the  Steinway 
grand  piano;  the  yearly  and  by  no  means  light 

146 


THE    SMUDGE 

tuition  toll  at  Miss  Harperly's  Select  Day  School 
for  Girls. 

You  get  the  whimsy  of  it?  For  everything  fair 
that  was  Marcia,  Hattie  had  brownly  paid  for. 
Liltingly,  and  with  the  rill  of  the  song  of  thanks 
giving  in  her  heart. 

That  was  how  Hattie  moved  through  her  time. 
Hugging  this  melody  of  Marcia.  Through  the  knife- 
edged  nervous  evenings  in  the  theater.  Bawlings. 
Purple  lips  with  loose  muscles  crawling  under  the 
rouge.  Fetidness  of  scent  on  stale  bodies.  Round 
faces  that  could  hook  into  the  look  of  vultures  when 
the  smell  of  success  became  as  the  smell  of  red  meat. 
All  the  petty  soiled  vanities,  like  the  disordered 
boudoir  of  a  cocotte.  The  perpetual  stink  of  per 
fume.  Powder  on  the  air  and  caking  the  breathing. 
Open  dressing-room  doors  that  should  have  been 
closed.  The  smelling  geometry  of  the  make-up  box.  . 
Curls.  Corsets.  Cosmetics.  Men  in  undershirts, 
grease-painting.  ' '  Gawdalmighty ,  Tottie,  them's 
my  teddy  bears  you're  puttin'  on."  Raw  nerves. 
Raw  emotions.  Ego,  the  actor's  overtone,  abroad 
everywhere  and  full  of  strut.  "Overture!"  The 
wait  in  the  wings.  Dizziness  at  the  pit  of  the 
stomach.  Audiences  with  lean  jaws  etched  into 
darkness.  Jaws  that  can  smile  or  crack  your  bones 
and  eat  you.  Faces  swimming  in  the  stage  ozone 
and  wolfish  for  cue.  The  purple  lips — 

Almost  like  a  frieze  stuck  on  to  the  border  of  each 
day  was  Hattie 's  life  in  the  theater.  Passementerie. 

That  was  how  Hattie  treated  it.  Especially 
during  those  placid  years  of  the  phenomenal  New 
York  run  of  "Love  Me  Long."  The  outer  edge  of 


THE    SMUDGE 

her  reality.  The  heart  of  her  reality?  Why,  the 
heart  of  it  was  the  long  morning  hours  in  her  own 
fragrant  kitchen  over  doughnuts  boiled  in  oil  and 
snowed  under  in  powdered  sugar!  Cookies  that  bit 
with  a  snap.  Filet  of  sole  boned  with  fingers  deft 
at  it  and  served  with  a  merest  fluff  of  tartar  sauce. 
Marcia  ate  like  that.  Preciously.  Pecksniffily. 
An  egg  at  breakfast  a  gag  to  the  sensibilities!  So 
Hat  tie  ate  hers  in  the  kitchen,  standing,  and  tucked 
the  shell  out  of  sight,  wrapped  in  a  bttuce  leaf. 
Beefsteak,  for  instance,  sickened  Marcia,  because 
there  was  blood  in  the  ooze  of  its  juices.  But  Hattie 
had  a  sly  way  of  camouflage.  Filet  mignon  (so 
strengthening,  you  see)  crushed  under  a  little 
millinery  of  mushrooms  and  served  under  glass. 
Then  when  Marcia 's  neat  little  row  of  neat  little 
teeth  bit  in  and  the  munch  began  behind  clean  and 
careful  lips,  Hattie's  heart,  a  regular  old  bandit  for 
cunning,  beat  hoppity,  skippity,  jump! 

Those  were  her  realities.  Home.  The  new  sand 
wich  cutters.  Heart  shape.  Diamond  shape. 
Spade.  The  strip  of  hall  carpet  newly  discovered  to 
scour  like  new  with  brush  and  soap  and  warm  water. 
Epstein's  meat  market  throws  in  free  suet.  The 
lamp  with  the  opal-silk  shade  for  Marcia 's  piano. 
White  oilcloth  is  cleaner  than  shelf  paper.  Dotted 
Swiss  curtains,  the  ones  in  Marcia's  room  looped 
back  with  pink  bows.  Old  sashes,  pressed  out  and 
fringed  at  the  edges. 

And  if  you  think  that  Hattie's  six  rooms  and 
bath  and  sunny,  full-sized  kitchen,  on  Morningside 
Heights,  were  trumped-up  ones  of  the  press  agent 
for  the  Sunday  Supplement,  look  in. 

148 


THE    SMUDGE 

afternoon.  Tuesday,  say,  and  Marcia  just 
home  from  school.  On  Tuesday  afternoon  of  every 
other  week  Hattie  made  her  cream,  in  a  large 
copper  pot  that  hung  under  the  sink.  Six  dozen 
half -pint  jars  waiting  to  be  filled  with  Brown  Cold 
Cream.  One  hundred  and  forty-four  jars  a  month. 
Guaranteed  Color-fast.  Mulatto,  Medium,  Choco 
late.  Labeled.  Sealed.  Sold.  And  demand  exceed 
ing  the  supply.  An  ingratiating,  expert  cream, 
known  the  black-faced  world  over.  It  slid  into  the 
skin,  not  sootily,  but  illuminating  it  to  winking, 
African  copper.  For  instance,  Hattie's  make-up 
cream  for  Linda  in  "Love  Me  Long"  was  labeled 
"Chocolate."  But  it  worked  in  even  a  truer  brown, 
as  if  it  had  come  out  of  the  pigment  instead  of  gone 
into  the  pores. 

Four  hours  of  stirring  it  took,  adding  with  exact 
minutiae  the  mysteriously  proper  proportions  of 
spermacetti,  oil  of  sweet  almonds,  white  wax — 
But  never  mind.  Hattie's  dark  secret  was  her  own. 

Fourteen  years  of  her  black  art  as  Broadway's 
maid  de  luxe  had  been  her  laboratory.  It  was  almost 
her  boast  now — remember  the  sunken  headstones— 
that  she  had  handled  spotlessly  every  fair  young 
star  of  the  theaters'  last  ten  years. 

It  was  as  mysterious  as  pigment,  her  cream,  and 
as  true,  and  netted  her,  with  occasional  extra 
batches,  an  average  of  two  hundred  dollars  a  month. 
She  enjoyed  making  it. ,  Singing  as  she  stirred  or 
rather  stirring  as  she  sang,  the  plenitude  of  her 
figure  enveloped  in  a  blue-and-white  -bungalow  apron 
with  rickrack  trimming. 

Often  Marcia,  home  from  day  school,  watched. 
149 


THE    SMUDGE 

Propped  up  in  the  window  frame  with  her  pet  cat,  a 
Persian,  with  eyes  like  swimming  pools  with  painted 
green  bottoms,  seated  in  a  perfect  circle  in  her  quiet 
lap,  for  all  the  world  in  the  attitude  of  a  sardel 
except  for  the  toothpick  through. 

Sometimes  it  almost  seemed  as  if  Marcia  did  the 
purring.  She  could  sit  like  that,  motionless,  her 
very  stare  seeming  to  sleep.  To  Hattie  that  stare 
was  beautiful,  and  in  a  way  it  was.  As  if  two  blue 
little  suns  were  having  their  high  noon. 

Sometimes  Marcia  offered  to  help,  because  toward 
the  end,  Hattie's  back  could  ache  at  this  process, 
terribly,  the  pain  knotting  itself  into  her  face  when 
the  rotary  movement  of  her  stirring  arm  began  to 
yank  at  her  nerves. 

"Momie,  111  stir  for  a  while." 

Marcia's  voice  was  day-schooled.  As  clipped,  as 
boxed,  and  as  precise  as  a  hedge.  Neat,  too,  as  neat 
as  the  way  her  clear  lips  met,  and  her  teeth,  which 
had  a  little  mannerism  of  coming  down  after  each 
word,  biting  them  off  like  threads.  They  were 
appealing  teeth  that  had  never  grown  big  or  square. 
Very  young  corn.  To  Hattie  there  was  something 
about  them  that  reminded  her  of  a  tiny  set  of 
Marcia's  doll  dishes  that  she  had  saved.  Little 
innocences. 

"I  don't  mind  stirring,  dear.     I'm  not  tired." 

"But  your  face  is  all  twisted." 

Hattie's  twisted  face  could  induce  in  Marcia  the 
same  gagged  pallor  that  the  egg  in  the  morning  or 
the  red  in  the  beefsteak  juices  brought  there. 

"Go  in  and  play  the  piano  awhile,  Marcy,  I'll  be 
finished  soon." 

150 


THE    SMUDGE 

"Sh-h-h!    No.     Pussy-kitty's  asleep." 

As  the  cream  grew  heavier  and  its  swirl  in  the  pot 
slower,  Hattie  could  keep  the  twist  out  of  her  face 
only  by  biting  her  tongue.  She  did,  and  a  little  arch 
of  sweat  came  out  in  a  mustache. 

The  brown  mud  of  the  cream  began  to  fluff.  Hattie 
rubbed  a  fleck  of  it  into  her  freckled  forearm.  Yes, 
Hattie's  arm  was  freckled,  and  so  was  the  bridge  of 
her  nose,  in  a  little  saddle.  Once  there  had  been  a 
prettincss  to  the  freckles  because  they  whitened  the 
skin  they  sprinkled  and  were  little  stars  to  the  moon 
reddiness  of  Hattie's  hair.  But  the  red  of  the  moon 
had  set  coldly  in  Hattie's  hair  now,  and  the  stars 
were  just  freckles,  and  there  was  the  dreaded  ridge 
of  flesh  showing  above  the  ridge  of  her  corsets,  and 
when  she  leaned  forward  to  stir  her  cheeks  hung 
forward  like  a  spaniel's,  not  of  fat,  but  heaviness. 
Hattie's  arms  and  thighs  were  granite  to  the  touch 
and  to  the  scales.  Kindly  freckled  granite.  She 
weighed  almost  twice  what  she  looked.  Marcia, 
whose  hips  were  like  lyres,  hated  the  ridge  above 
the  corset  line  and  massaged  it.  Mab  smacking  the 
Himalayas. 

After  a  while,  there  in  the  window  frame,  Marcia 
closed  her  eyes.  There  was  still  the  illusion  of  a 
purr  about  her.  Probably  because,  as  her  kitten 
warmed  in  its  circle,  its  coziness  began  to  whir 
mountingly.  The  September  afternoon  was  full  of 
drone.  The  roofs  of  the  city  from  Hattie's  kitchen 
window,  which  overlooked  Morningside  Heights,  lay 
flat  as  slaps.  Tranced,  indoor  quiet.  Presently 
Hattie  began  to  tiptoe.  The  seventy-two  jars  were 
untopped  now,  in  a  row  on  a  board  over  the  built- 


THE    SMUDGE 

in  wash  tub.  Seventy- two  yawning  for  content. 
Squnch !  Her  enormous  spoon  into  the  copper  kettle 
and  flop,  gurgle,  gooze,  softly  into  the  jars.  One — 
two — three —  At  the  sixty-eighth,  Marcia,  without 
stirring  or  lifting  her  lids,  spoke  into  the  sucky  silence. 

"Momie?" 

"Yes,  Marcy." 

"You'll  be  glad." 

Hattie,  pausing  at  the  sixty-eighth,  "Why,  dear?" 

"I  came  home  in  Nonie  Grosbeck's  automobile. 
I'm  invited  to  a  dinner  dance  October  the  seven 
teenth.  At  their  house  in  Gramercy  Park." 

The  words  must  have  gone  to  Hattie's  knees, 
because,  dropping  a  spat  of  mulatto  cold  cream  on 
the  linoleum,  she  sat  down  weakly  on  the  kitchen 
chair  that  she  had  painted  blue  and  white  to  match 
the  china  cereal  set  on  the  shelf  above  it. 

"Marcy!" 

"And  she  likes  me  better  than  any  girl  in  school, 
momie,  and  I'm  to  be  her  chum  from  to-day  on, 
and  not  another  girl  in  school  is  invited  except 
Edwina  Neison,  because  her  father's  on  nearly  all 
the  same  boards  of  directors  with  Mr.  Grosbeck, 
and—" 

"Marcia!  Marcia!  and  you  came  home  from 
school  just  as  if  nothing  had  happened!  Child, 
sometimes  I  think  you're  made  of  ice." 

"Why,  I'm  glad,  momie." 

But  that's  what  there  were,  little  ice  glints  of  con 
gealed  satisfaction  in  Marcia 's  eyes. 

"Glad,"  said  Hattie,  the  word  full  of  tears. 
"Why,  honey,  you  don't  realize  it,  but  this  is  the 
beginning!  This  is  the  meaning  of  my  struggle  to 

152 


THE    SMUDGE 

get  you  into  Miss  Harperly's  school.  It  wasn't 
easy.  I've  never  told  you  the — strings  I  had  to 
pull.  Conservative  people,  you  see.  That's  what 
the  Grosbecks  are,  too.  Home  people.  The  kind 
who  can  afford  to  wear  dowdy  hats  and  who  have 
lived  in  the  same  house  for  thirty  years." 

"Nome's  mother  was  born  in  the  house  they  live 
in." 

"Substantial  people,  who  half-sole  their  shoes 
and  endow  colleges.  Taxpayers.  Policy  holders. 
Church  members.  Oh,  Marcia,  those  are  the  safe 
people!" 

"There's  a  Grosbeck  memorial  window  in  the 
Rock  Church." 

"I  used  to  be  so  afraid  for  you,  Marcy.  Afraid 
you  would  take  to  the  make-believe  folks.  The 
play  people.  The  theater.  I  used  to  fear  for  you! 
The  Pullman  car.  The  furnished  room.  That 
going  to  the  hotel  room,  alone,  nights  after  the  show. 
You  laugh  at  me  sometimes  for  just  throwing  a 
veil  over  my  face  and  coming  home  black-face. 
It's  because  I'm  too  tired,  Marcy.  Too  lonesome 
for  home.  On  the  road  I  always  used  to  think  of 
all  the  families  in  the  audience.  The  husbands  and 
wives.  Brides  and  grooms.  Sweethearts.  After 
the  performance  they  all  went  to  homes.  To 
brownstone  fronts  like  the  Grosbecks'.  To  cottages. 
To  flats.  With  a  snack  to  eat  in  the  refrigerator  or 
laid  out  on  the  dining-room  table.  Lamps  burning 
and  waiting.  Nighties  laid  out  and  bedcovers 
turned  back.  And  then — me.  Second-rate  hotels. 
That  walk  through  the  dark  downtown  streets. 
Passing  men  who  address  you  through  closed  lips. 


THE    SMUDGE 

The  dingy  lobby.  There's  no  applause  lasts  long 
enough,  Marcia,  to  reach  over  that  moment  when 
you  unlock  your  hotel  room  and  the  smell  of  dis 
infectant  and  unturned  mattress  comes  out  to  you." 

"Ugh!" 

"Oh,  keep  to  the  safe  people,  Marcia!  The 
unexciting  people,  maybe,  but  the  safe  home- 
building  ones  with  old  ideals  and  old  hearthstones." 

"Nonie  says  they  have  one  in  their  library  that 
comes  from  Italy." 

"Hitch  your  ideal  to  a  hearthstone  like  that, 
Marcia." 

"Nonie  goes  to  riding  academy." 

"So  shall  you." 

"It's  six  dollars  an  hour." 

"I  don't  care." 

"Her  father's  retired  except  for  being  director  in 
banks.  And,  momie — they  don't  mind,  dear — about 
us.  Nonie  knows  that  my — father  is — is  separated 
and  never  lived  at  home  with  us.  She's  broad- 
minded.  She  says  just  so  there's  no  scandal,  a 
divorce,  or  anything  like  that.  She  said  it's  vulgar 
to  cultivate  only  rich  friends.  She  says  she'd  go 
with  me  even  if  she's  forbidden  to." 

"Why,  Marcy  darling,  why  should  she  be  for 
bidden?" 

"Oh,  Nome's  broadminded.  She  says  if  two 
people  are  unsuited  they  should  separate,  quietly, 
like  you  and  my  father.  She  knows  we're  one  of  the 
first  old  Southern  families  on  my  father's  side. 
I — I'm  not  trying  to  make  you  talk  about  it,  dear, 
but — but  we  are — aren't  we?" 

"Yes,  Marcy." 


THE    SMUDGE 

"He — he  was  just — irresponsible.  That's  not 
being — not  nice  people,  is  it?" 

"No,  Marcy." 

"Nome's  not  forbidden.  She  just  meant  in  case, 
momie.  You  see,  with  some  old  families  like  hers 
— the  stage — but  Nonie  says  her  father  couldn't 
even  say  anything  to  that  if  he  wanted  to.  His 
own  sister  went  on  the  stage  once,  and  they  had  to 
hush  it  up  in  the  papers." 

"Did  you  explain  to  her,  Marcy,  that  stage  life 
at  its  best  can  be  full  of  fine  ideals  and  truth  ?  Did 
you  make  her  see  how  regular  your  own  little  life 
has  been?  How  little  you  know  about — my  work? 
How  away  I've  kept  you?  How  I  won't  even  play 
out-of-town  engagements  so  we  can  always  be 
together  in  our  little  home?  You  must  explain  all 
those  things  to  your  friends  at  Miss  Harperly's.  It 
helps — with  steady  people." 

"I  have,  momie,  and  she's  going  to  bring  me  home 
every  afternoon  in  their  automobile  after  we've 
called  for  her  brother  Archie  at  Columbia  Law 
School." 

"Marcy!  the  Grosbeck  automobile  bringing  you 
home  every  day!" 

"And  it's  going  to  call  for  me  the  night  of  the 
party.  Nonie's  getting  a  lemon  taffeta." 

"I'll  get  you  ivory,  with  a  bit  of  real  lace!" 

"Oh,  momie,  momie,  I  can  scarcely  wait!" 

"What  did  she  say,  Marcy,  when  she  asked — 
invited  you?" 

"She?" 

"Nonie." 

"Why — she — didn't  invite  me,  momie." 


THE    SMUDGE 

"But  you  just  said — " 

"It  was  her  brother  Archie  invited  me.  We  called 
for  him  at  Columbia  Law  School,  you  see.  It  was 
he  invited  me.  Of  course  Nonie  wants  me  and 
said  'Yes'  right  after  him — but  it's  he — who  wants 
Nonie  and  me  to  be  chums.  I —  He —  I  thought 
— I — told — you — momie. ' ' 

Suddenly  Marcia's  eyes,  almost  with  the  perpen 
dicular  slits  of  her  kitten's  in  them,  seemed  to  swish 
together  like  portieres,  shutting  Hattie  behind  them 
with  her. 

"Oh — my  Marcy!"  said  Hattie,  dimly,  after  a 
while,  as  if  from  their  depths.  "Marcy,  dearest!" 

"At — at  Harperly's,  momie,  almost  all  the  popular 
upper-class  girls  wear — a — a  boy's  fraternity  pin." 

"Fraternity  pin?" 

"It's  the — the  beginning  of  being  engaged." 

"But,  Marcy—" 

"Archie's  a  Pi  Phi!" 

"A— what?" 

"A  Pi  Phi." 

* '  Phi — pie — Marcy — dear — ' ' 

On  October  iyth  "Love  Me  Long"  celebrated  its 
two-hundredth  performance.  Souvenir  programs. 
A  few  appropriate  words  by  the  management.  A 
flashlight  of  the  cast.  A  round  of  wine  passed  in 
the  after-the-performance  gloom  of  the  wings.  Aque 
ous  figures  fading  off  in  the  orderly  back-stage  fashion 
of  a  well-established  success. 

Hattie  kissed  the  star.  They  liked  each  other 
with  the  unenvy  of  their  divergent  roles.  Miss 
Robinson  even  humored  some  of  Hattie's  laughs. 

156 


THE    SMUDGE 

She  liked  to  feel  the  flame  of  her  own  fairness  as  she 
stood  there  waiting  for  the  audience  to  guffaw  its 
fill  of  Hattie's  drolleries;  a  narcissus  swaying  reedily 
beside  a  black  crocodile. 

She  was  a  new  star  and  her  beauty  the  color  of 
cloth  of  gold,  and  Hattie  in  her  lowly  comedian  way 
not  an  undistinguished  veteran.  So  they  could  kiss 
in  the  key  of  a  cat  cannot  unseat  a  king. 

But,  just  the  same,  Miss  Robinson's  hand  flew  up 
automatically  against  the  dark  of  Hattie's  lips. 

"I  don't  fade  off,  dearie.  Your  own  natural  skin 
is  no  more  color-fast.  I  handled  Elaine  Doremus  in 
'The  Snowdrop'  for  three  seasons.  Never  so  much 
as  a  speck  or  a  spot  on  her.  My  cream  don't  fade." 

"Of  course  not,  dear!  How  silly  of  me!  Kiss  me 
again." 

That  was  kind  enough  of  her.  Oh  yes,  they 
got  on.  But  sometimes  Hattie,  seated  among  her 
sagging  headstones,  would  ache  with  the  dry  sob 
of  the  black  crocodile  who  yearned  toward  the 
narcissus.  .  .  . 

Quite  without  precedent,  there  was  a  man  waiting 
for  her  in  the  wings. 

The  gloom  of  back-stage  was  as  high  as  trees  and 
Hattie  had  not  seen  him  in  sixteen  years.  But  she 
knew.  With  the  stunned  consciousness  of  a  stabbed 
person  that  glinting  instant  before  the  blood  begins 
to  flow. 

It  was  Morton  Sebree — Marcia's  father. 

"Morton!" 

"Hattie." 

"Come  up  to  my  dressing  room,"  she  said,  as 


THE    SMUDGE 

matter-of-factly  as  if  her  brain  were  a  clock  ticking 
off  the  words. 

They  walked  up  an  iron  staircase  of  unreality. 
Fantastic  stairs.  Wisps  of  gloom.  Singing  pains  in 
her  climbing  legs  like  a  piano  key  hit  very  hard  and 
held  down  with  a  pressing  forefinger.  She  could 
listen  to  her  pain.  That  was  her  thought  as  she 
climbed.  How  the  irrelevant  little  ideas  would 
slide  about  in  her  sudden  chaos.  She  must  concen 
trate  now.  Terribly.  Morton  was  back. 

His  hand,  a  smooth  glabrous  one  full  of  clutch, 
riding  up  the  banister.  It  could  have  been  picked 
off,  finger  by  finger.  It  was  that  kind  of  a  hand. 
But  after  each  lift,  another  finger  would  have  curled 
back  again.  Morton's  hand,  ascending  the  idark 
like  a  soul  on  a  string  in  a  burlesque  show. 

Face  to  face.  The  electric  bulb  in  her  dressing 
room  was  incased  in  a  wire  like  a  baseball  mask. 
A  burning  prison  of  light.  Fat  sticks  of  grease  paint 
with  the  grain  of  Hattie 's  flesh  printed  on  the  daub 
end.  Furiously  brown  cheesecloth.  An  open  jar 
of  cream  (chocolate)  with  the  gesture  of  the  gouge 
in  it.  A  woolly  black  wig  on  a  shelf,  its  kinks 
seeming  to  crawl.  There  was  a  rim  of  Hattie  au 
natural  left  around  her  lips.  It  made  of  her  mouth 
a  comedy  blubber,  her  own  rather  firm  lips  sliding 
about  somewhere  in  the  lightish  swamp.  That  was 
all  of  Hattie  that  looked  out.  Except  her  eyes. 
They  were  good  gray  eyes  with  popping  whites 
now,  because  of  a  trick  of  blackening  the  lids.  But 
the  irises  were  in  their  pools,  inviolate. 

"Well,  Hattie,  I  reckon  I'd  have  known  you  even 
under  black."  t 

158 


THE    SMUDGE 

"I  thought  you  were  in  Rio." 

"Got  to  hankering  after  the  States,  Hattie." 

"I  read  of  a  Morris  Sebree  died  in  Brazil.  Some 
times  I  used  to  think  maybe  it  might  have  been  a 
misprint — and — that — you — were — the — one. ' ' 

"No,  no.  'Live  and  kickin'.  Been  up  around 
here  a  good  while." 

"Where?" 

"Home.  N'Orleans.  M'  mother  died,  Hattie, 
God  rest  her  bones.  Know  it?" 

"No." 

"Cancer." 

It  was  a  peculiar  silence.  A  terrible  word  like 
that  was  almost  slowly  soluble  in  it.  Gurgling 
down. 

"O-oh!" 

"Sort  of  gives  a  fellow  the  shivers,  Hattie,  seeing 
you  kinda  hidin'  behind  yourself  like  this.  But  I 
saw  you  come  in  the  theater  to-night.  You  looked 
right  natural.  Little  heavier." 

"What  do  you  want?" 

"Why,  I  guess  a  good  many  things  in  general 
and  nothing  in  particular,  as  the  sayin'  goes.  You 
don't  seem  right  glad  to  see  me,  honey." 

"Glad!"  said  Hattie,  and  laughed  as  if  her  mirth 
were  a  dice  shaking  in  a  box  of  echoes. 

"Your  hair's  right  red  yet.  Looked  mighty 
natural  walkin'  into  the  theater  to-night.  Take  off 
those  kinks,  honey." 

She  reached  for  her  cleansing  cream,  then  stopped, 
her  eyes  full  of  the  foment  of  torture. 

"What's  my  looks  to  you?" 

"You've  filled  out." 


THE    SMUDGE 

"You  haven't,"  she  said,  putting  down  the  cold- 
cream  jar.  "You  haven't  aged  an  hour.  Your  kind 
lies  on  life  like  it  was  a  wall  in  the  sun.  A  wall  that 
somebody  else  has  built  for  you  stone  by  stone." 

"I  reckon  you're  right  in  some  ways,  Hattie. 
There's  been  a  meanderin'  streak  in  me  somewheres. 
You  and  m'  mother,  God  rest  her  bones,  had  a 
different  way  of  scoldin'  me  for  the  same  thing.  Lot 
o'  Huck  Finn  in  me." 

"Don't  use  bad-boy  words  for  vicious,  bad-man 
deeds!" 

"But  you  liked  me.  Both  of  you  liked  me,  honey. 
Only  two  women  I  ever  really  cared  for,  too.  You 
and  m'  mother." 

Her  face  might  have  been  burning  paper,  curling 
her  scorn  for  him. 

"Don't  try  that,  Morton.  It  won't  work  any 
more.  What  used  to  infatuate  me  only  disgusts  me 
now.  The  things  I  thought  I — loved — in  you,  I 
loathe  now.  The  kind  of  cancer  that  killed  your 
mother  is  the  kind  that  eats  out  the  heart.  I 
never  knew  her,  never  even  saw  her  except  from  a 
distance,  but  I  know,  just  as  well  as  if  I'd  lived  in 
that  fine  big  house  with  her  all  those  years  in  New 
Orleans,  that  you  were  the  sickness  that  ailed  her — 
a  lying,  squandering,  gambling,  no-'count  son! 
If  she  and  I  are  the  only  women  you  ever  cared  for, 
thank  God  that  there  aren't  any  more  of  us  to  suffer 
from  you.  Morton,  when  I  read  that  a  Morris 
Sebree  had  died  in  Brazil,  I  hoped  it  was  you! 
You're  no  good!  You're  no  good!" 

She  was  thumping  now  with  the  sobs  she  kept 
under  her  voice. 

160 


THE    SMUDGE 

"Why,  Hattie,"  he  said,  his  drawl  not  quickened, 
"you  don't  mean  that!" 

"I  do!  You're  a  miner  of  lives !  Her  life!  Mine! 
You're  a  rotten  apple  that  can  speck  every  one  it 
touches." 

"That's  hard,  Hattie,  but  I  reckon  you're  not  all 
wrong. ' ' 

"Oh,  that  softy  Southern  talk  won't  get  us  any 
where,  Morton.  The  very  sound  of  it  sickens  me 
now.  You're  like  a  terrible  sickness  I  once  had. 
I'm  cured  now.  I  don't  know  what  you  want  here, 
but  whatever  it  is  you  might  as  well  go.  I'm 
cured!" 

He  sat  forward  in  his  chair,  still  twirling  the  soft 
brown  hat.  He  was  dressed  like  that.  Softly. 
Good-quality  loosely  woven  stuffs.  There  was  still 
a  tan  down  of  persistent  youth  on  the  back  of  his 
neck.  But  his  hands  were  old,  the  veins  twisted 
wiring,  and  his  third  finger  yellowly  stained,  like 
meerschaum  darkening. 

"Grantin'  everything  you  say,  Hattie — and  I'm 
holdin'  no  brief  for  myself — I've  been  the  sick  one, 
not  you.  Twenty  years  I've  been  down  sick  with 
hookworm." 

"With  devilishness." 

"No,  Hattie.  It's  the  government's  diagnosis. 
Hookworm.  Been  a  sick  man  all  my  life  with  it. 
Funny  thing,  though,  all  those  years  in  Rio  knocked 
it  out  of  me." 

"Faugh!" 

"I'm  a  new  man  since  I'm  well  of  it."    - 

"Hookworm!  That's  an  easy  word  for  ingrained 
no-'countness,  deviltry,  and  deceit.  It  wasn't 

161 


THE    SMUDGE 

hookworm  came  into  the  New  Orleans  stock  com 
pany  where  I  was  understudying  leads  and  getting 
my  chance  to  play  big  things.  It  wasn't  hookworm 
put  me  in  a  position  where  I  had  to  take  anything 
I  could  get!  So  that  instead  of  finding  me  playing 
leads  you  find  me  here — black-face!  It  was  a  devil! 
A  liar !  A  spendthrift,  no- 'count  son  out  of  a  family 
that  deserved  better.  I've  cried  more  tears  over 
you  than  I  ever  thought  any  woman  ever  had  it  in 
her  to  cry.  Those  months  in  that  boarding  house  in 
Peach  Tree  Street  down  in  New  Orleans!  Peach 
Tree  Street!  I  remember  how  beautiful  even  the 
name  of  it  was  when  you  took  me  there — lying — and 
how  horrible  it  became  to  me.  Those  months  when 
I  used  to  see  your  mother's  carriage  drive  by  the 
house  twice  a  day  and  me  crying  my  eyes  out  behind 
the  curtains.  That's  what  I've  never  forgiven  myself 
for.  She  was  a  woman  who  stood  for  fine  things  in 
New  Orleans.  A  good  woman  whom  the  whole 
town  pitied!  A  no- 'count  son  squandering  her 
fortune  and  dragging  down  the  family  name.  If 
only  I  had  known  all  that  then!  She  would  have 
helped  me  if  I  had  appealed  to  her.  She  wouldn't 
have  let  things  turn  out  secretly — the  way  they  did. 
She  would  have  helped  me.  I —  You —  Why 
have  you  come  here  to  jerk  knives  out  of  my  heart 
after  it's  got  healed  with  the  points  sticking  in? 
You're  nothing  to  me.  You're  skulking  for  a  reason. 
You've  been  hanging  around,  getting  pointers  about 
me.  My  life  is  my  own !  You  get  out ! " 

"The  girl.    She  well?" 

It  was  a  quiet  question,  spoken  in  the  key  of 
being  casual,  and  Hattie,  whose  heart  skipped  a 

163 


THE    SMUDGE 

beat,  tried  to  corral  the  fear  in  her  eyes  to  take  it 
casually,  except  that  her  eyelids  seemed  to  grow  old 
even  as  they  drooped.  Squeezed  grape  skins. 

"You  get  out,  Morton,"  she  said.  "You've  got 
to  get  out." 

He  made  a  cigarette  in  an  old,  indolent  way  he 
had  of  wetting  it  with  his  smile.  He  was  handsome 
enough  after  his  fashion,  for  those  who  like  the 
rather  tropical  combination  of  dark-ivory  skin,  and 
hair  a  lighter  shade  of  tan.  It  did  a  curious  thing  to 
his  eyes.  Behind  their  allotment  of  tan  lashes  they 
became  neutralized.  Straw  colored. 

"She's  about  sixteen  now.    Little  over,  I  reckon." 

"What's  that  to  you?" 

"Blood,  Hattie.    Thick." 

"What  thickened  it,  Morton  —  after  sixteen 
years?" 

"Used  to  be  an  artist  chap  down  in  Rio.  On  his 
uppers.  One  night,  according  to  my  description  of 
what  I  imagined  she  looked  like,  he  drew  her.  Yel 
low  hair,  I  reckoned,  and  sure  enough — " 

"You're  not  worthy  of  the  resemblance.  It 
wouldn't  be  there  if  I  had  the  saying." 

"You  haven't,"  he  said,  suddenly,  his  teeth 
snapping  together  as  if  biting  off  a  thread. 

"Nor  you!"  something  that  was  the  whiteness 
of  fear  lightening  behind  her  mask.  She  rose  then, 
lifting  her  chair  out  of  the  path  toward  the  door  and 
flinging  her  arm  out  toward  it,  very  much  after  the 
manner  of  Miss  Robinson  in  Act  II. 

"You  get  out,  Morton,"  she  said,  "before  I  have 
you  put  out.  They're  closing  the  theater  now, 
Get  out!" 

163 


THE    SMUDGE 

"Hattie,"  his  calm  enormous,  "don't  be  hasty. 
A  man  that  has  come  to  his  senses  has  come  back 
to  you  humble  and  sincere.  A  man  that's  been 
sick.  Take  me  back,  Hattie,  and  see  if — " 

"Back!"  she  said,  lifting  her  lips  scornfully  away 
from  touching  the  word.  "You  remember  that 
night  in  that  little  room  on  Peach  Tree  Street  when 
I  prayed  on  my  knees  and  kissed — your — shoes 
and  crawled  for  your  mercy  to  stay  for  Marcia  to 
be  born?  Well,  if  you  were  to  lie  on  this  floor  and 
kiss  my  shoes  and  crawl  for  my  mercy  I'd  walk  out 
on  you  the  way  you  walked  out  on  me.  If  you  don't 
go,  I'll  call  a  stage  hand  and  make  you  go.  There's 
one  coming  down  the  corridor  now  and  locking  the 
house.  You  go— or  I'll  call!" 

His  eyes,  with  their  peculiar  trick  of  solubility 
in  his  color  scheme,  seemed  all  tan. 

"I'll  go,"  he  said,  looking  slim  and  Southern, 
his  imperturbability  ever  so  slightly  unfrocked — 
"I'll  go,  but  you're  making  a  mistake,  Hattie." 

Fear  kept  clanging  in  her.    Fire  bells  of  it. 

"Oh,  but  that's  like  you,  Morton!  Threats!  But, 
thank  God,  nothing  you  can  do  can  harm  me  any 
more." 

"I  reckon  she's  considerable  over  sixteen  now. 
Let's  see—" 

Fire  bells.    Fire  bells. 

"Come  out  with  what  you  want,  Morton,  like  a 
man!  You're  feeling  for  something.  Money?  Now 
that  your  mother  is  dead  and  her  fortune  squandered, 
you've  come  to  harass  me?  That's  it!  I  know  you, 
like  a  person  who  has  been  disfigured  for  life  by 
burns  knows  fire.  Well,  I  won't  pay!" 

164 


THE    SMUDGE 

"Pay?    Why,  Hattie— I  want  you— back— " 

She  could  have  cried  because,  as  she  sat  there 
blackly,  she  was  sick  with  his  lie. 

"Fd  save  a  dog  from  you." 

"Then  save — her — from  me." 

The  terrible  had  happened  so  quietly.  Morton 
had  not  raised  his  voice;  scarcely  his  lips. 

She  closed  the  door  then  and  sat  down  once  more, 
but  that  which  had  crouched  out  of  their  talk  was 
unleashed  now. 

"That's  just  exactly  what  I  intend  to  do." 

"How?" 

"By  saving  her  sight  or  sound  of  you." 

"You  can't,  Hattie." 

"Why?" 

"I've  come  back."  There  was  a  curve  to  his 
words  that  hooked  into  her  heart  like  forceps  about 
a  block  of  ice.  But  she  outstared  him,  holding  her 
lips  in  the  center  of  the  comedy  rim  so  that  he  could 
see  how  firm  their  bite. 

"Not  to  me." 

"To  her,  then." 

"Even  you  wouldn't  be  low  enough  to  let  her 
know — " 

"Know  what?" 

"Facts." 

"You  mean  she  doesn't  know?" 

"Know!  Know  you  for  what  you  are  and  for 
what  you  made  of  me?  I've  kept  it  something 
decent  for  her.  Just  the  separation  of  husband  and 
wife — who  couldn't  agree.  Incompatibility.  I  have 
not  told  her — "  And  suddenly  could  have  rammed 
her  teeth  into  the  tongue  that  had  betrayed  her. 

165 


THE    SMUDGE 

Simultaneously  with  the  leap  of  light  into  his 
eyes  came  the  leap  of  her  error  into  her  consciousness. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  and  smiled,  a  slow  smile  that 
widened  as  leisurely  as  sorghum  in  the  pouring. 

"You  made  me  tell  you  that!  You  came  here  for 
that.  To  find  out!" 

"Nothin'  the  sort,  Hattie.  You  only  verified 
what  I  kinda  suspected.  Naturally,  you've  kept  it 
from  her.  Admire  you  for  it." 

"But  I  lied!  See!  I  know  your  tricks.  She  does 
know  you  for  what  you  are  and  what  you  made  of 
me.  She  knows  everything.  Now  what  are  you 
going  to  do  ?  She  knows !  I  lied !  I — "  then  stopped, 
at  the  curve  his  lips  were  taking  and  at  conscious 
ness  of  the  pitiableness  of  her  device. 

"Morton,"  she  said,  her  hands  opening  into  her 
lap  into  pads  of  great  pink  helplessness,  "you 
wouldn't  tell  her — on  me!  You're  not  that  low!" 

"Wouldn't  tell  what?" 

He  was  rattling  her,  and  so  she  fought  him  with 
her  gaze,  trying  to  fasten  and  fathom  under  the 
flicker  of  his  lids.  But  there  were  no  eyes  there. 
Only  the  neutral,  tricky  tan. 

"You  see,  Morton,  she's  just  sixteen.  The  age 
when  it's  more  important  than  anything  else  in  the 
world  to  a  young  girl  that's  been  reared  like  her  to — 
to  have  her  life  regular!  Like  all  her  other  little 
school  friends.  She's  like  that,  Morton.  Sensitive! 
Don't  touch  her,  Morton.  For  God's  sake,  don't! 
Some  day  when  she's  past  having  to  care  so  terribly — 
when  she's  older — you  can  rake  it  up  if  you  must 
torture.  I'll  tell  her  then.  But  for  God's  sake, 
Morton,  let  us  live — now!" 

166 


THE    SMUDGE 

"Hattie,  you  meet  me  to-morrow  morning  and 
take  a  little  journey  to  one  of  these  little  towns 
around  here  in  Jersey  or  Connecticut,  and  your  lie 
to  her  won't  be  a  lie  any  more." 

"Morton— -I— I   don't  understand.    Why?1' 

' Til  marry  you." 

"You  fool!"  she  said,  almost  meditatively.  "So 
you've  heard  we've  gotten  on  a  bit.  You  must 
even  have  heard  of  this" — placing  her  hand  over 
the  jar  of  the  Brown  Cold  Cream.  "You  want  to 
be  in  at  the  feast.  You're  so  easy  to  read  that  I 
can  tell  you  what  you're  after  before  you  can  get 
the  coward  words  out.  Marry  you!  You  fool!" 

It  was  as  if  she  could  not  flip  the  word  off  scorn 
fully  enough,  sucking  back  her  lower  lip,  then 
hurling. 

"Well,  Hattie,"  he  said,  unbunching  his  soft  hat, 
"I  reckon  that's  pretty  plain." 

"I  reckon  it  is,  Morton." 

"All  right.  Everybody  to  his  own  notion  of 
carryin'  a  grudge  to  the  grave.  But  it's  all  right, 
honey.  No  hard  feelin's.  It's  something  to  know 
I  was  willin'  to  do  the  right  thing.  There's  a  fruit 
steamer  out  of  here  for  N' Orleans  in  the  mawnin'. 
Reckon  I'll  catch  it." 

"I'd  advise  you  to." 

"No  objection  to  me  droppin'  around  to  see  the 
girl  first?  Entitled  to  a  little  natural  curiosity. 
Come,  I'll  take  you  up  home  this  evenin'.  The 
girl.  No  harm." 

"You're  not  serious,  Morton.  You  wouldn't 
upset  things.  You  wouldn't  tell — that — child!" 

"Why,  not  in  a  thousand  years,  honey,  unless 
167 


THE    SMUDGE 

you  forced  me  to  it.    Well,  you've  forced  me.    Come, 
Hattie,  I'm  seein'  you  home  this  evenin'." 

"You  can't  put  your  foot — " 

"Come  now.  You're  too  clever  a  woman  to  try 
to  prevent  me.  Course  there's  a  way  to  keep  me 
from  goin'  up  home  with  you  this  evenin'.  I  wouldn't 
use  it,  if  I  were  you.  You  know  I'll  get  to  see  her. 
I  even  know  where  she  goes  to  school.  Mighty  nice 
selection  you  made,  Hattie,  Miss  Harperly's." 

"You  can't  frighten  me,"  she  said,  trying  to  mois 
ten  her  lips  with  her  tongue.  But  it  was  dry  as  a 
parrot's.  It  was  hard  to  close  her  lips.  They  were 
oval  and  suddenly  immobile  as  a  picture  frame. 
What  if  she  could  not  swallow.  There  was  nothing 
to  swallow!  Dry  tongue.  O  God!  Marcia! 

That  was  the  fleeting  form  her  panic  took,  but 
almost  immediately  she  could  manage  her  lips  again. 
Her  lips,  you  see,  they  counted  so!  She  must  keep 
them  firm  in  the  slippery  shine  of  the  comedy  black. 

"Come,"  he  said,  "get  your  make-up  off.  I'll 
take  you  up  in  a  cab." 

"How  do  you  know  it's — up?" 

"Why,  I  don't  know  as  I  do  know  exactly.  Just 
came  kind  of  natural  to  put  it  that  way.  Morning- 
side  Heights  is  about  right,  I  calculate." 

"So — you  have — been  watching." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  as  I'd  put  it  thataway. 
Naturally,  when  I  got  to  town — first  thing  I  did — 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  That's  a  mighty 
fine  car  with  a  mighty  fine-looking  boy  and  a  girl 
brings  your — our  girl  home  every  afternoon  about 
four.  We  used  to  have  a  family  of  Grosbecks  down 
home,  Another  branch,  I  reckon," 

168 


THE   SMUDGE 

"O — God!"  A  malaprop  of  a  tear,  too  heavy  to 
wink  in,  came  rolling  suddenly  down  Hat  tie's  cheek. 
" Morton — let — us — live — for  God's  sake!  Please!" 

He  regarded  the  clean  descent  of  the  tear  down 
Hattie's  color-fast  cheek  and  its  clear  drop  into  the 
bosom  of  her  black- taffeta  housemaid's  dress. 

"By  Jove!  The  stuff  is  color-fast!  You've  a 
fortune  in  that  cream  if  you  handle  it  right, 
honey." 

"My  way  is  the  right  way  for  me." 

"But  it's  a  woman's  way.  Incorporate.  Manu 
facture  it.  Get  a  man  on  the  job.  Promote  it!" 

"Ah,  that  sounds  familiar.  The  way  you  pro 
moted  away  every  cent  of  your  mother's  fortune 
until  the  bed  she  died  in  was  mortgaged.  One  of 
your  wildcat  schemes  again!  Oh,  I  watched  you 
before  I  lost  track  of  you  in  South  America — just 
the  way  you're  watching — us — now!  I  know  the 
way  you  squandered  your  mother's  fortune.  The 
rice  plantation  in  Georgia.  The  alfalfa  ranch.  The 
solid-rubber-tire  venture  in  Atlanta.  You  don't 
get  your  hands  on  my  affairs.  My  way  suits  me!" 

The  tumult  in  her  was  so  high  and  her  panic  so 
like  a  squirrel  in  the  circular  frenzy  of  its  cage  that 
she  scarcely  noted  the  bang  on  the  door  and  the  hairy 
voice  that  came  through. 

"All  out!" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  without  knowing  it. 

"You're  losing  a  fortune,  Hattie.  Shame  on  a 
fine,  strapping  woman  like  you,  black-facing' herself 
up  like  this  when  you've  hit  on  something  with  a 
fortune  in  it  if  you  work  it  properly.  You  ought  to 
have  more  regard  for  the  girl.  Black-face!" 

169 


THE    SMUDGE 

"What  has  her — father's  regard  done  for  her? 
It's  my  black-face  has  kept  her  like  a  lily!" 

"Admitting  all  that  you  say  about  me  is  right. 
Well,  I'm  here  eating  humble  pie  now.  If  that 
little  girl  doesn't  know,  bless  my  heart,  I'm  willin' 
she  shouldn't  ever  know.  I'll  take  you  out  to  Green 
wich  to-morrow  and  marry  you.  Then  what  you've 
told  her  all  these  years  is  the  truth.  I've  just  come 
back,  that's  all.  We've  patched  up.  It's  done  every 
day.  Right  promoting  and  a  few  hundred  dollars  in 
that  there  cream  will — " 

She  laughed.  November  rain  running  off  a  broken 
spout.  Yellow  leaves  scuttling  ahead  of  wind. 

"The  picture  puzzle  is  now  complete,  Morton. 
Your  whole  scheme,  piece  by  piece.  You're  about  as 
subtle  as  corn  bread.  Well,  my  answer  to  you  again 
is,  'Get  out!'" 

"All  right.  All  right.  But  we'll  both  get  out, 
Hattie.  Come,  I'm  a-goin'  to  call  on  you-all  up 
home  a  little  while  this  evenin' !" 

"No.    It's  late.    She's—" 

"Come,  Hattie,  you  know  I'm  a-goin'  to  see  that 
girl  one  way  or  another.  If  you  want  me  to  catch 
that  fruit  steamer  to-morrow,  if  I  were  you  I'd  let 
me  see  her  my  way.  You  know  I'm  not  much  on 
raisin'  my  voice,  but  if  I  were  you,  Hattie,  I  wouldn't 
fight  me." 

"Morton — Morton,  listen!  If  you'll  take  that 
fruit  steamer  without  trying  to  see  her — would  you? 
You're  on  your  uppers.  I  understand.  Would  a 
hundred — two  hundred — " 

' '  I  used  to  light  my  cigarette  with  that  much  down 
on  my  rice  swamps — " 

170 


THE    SMUDGE 

"You  see,  Morton,  she's  such  a  little  thing.  A 
little  thing  with  big  eyes.  All  her  life  those  eyes 
have  looked  right  down  into  me,  believing  every 
thing  I  ever  told  her.  About  you  too,  Morton. 
Good  things.  Not  that  I'm  ashamed  of  anything  I 
ever  told  her.  My  only  wrong  was  ignorance.  And 
innocence.  Innocence  of  the  kind  of  lesson  I  was  to 
learn  from  you." 

"Nothin'  was  ever  righted  by  harping  on  it, 
Hattie." 

"But  I  want  you  to  understand — O  God,  make 
him  understand — she's  such  a  sensitive  little  thing. 
And  as  things  stand  now — glad  I'm  her  mother. 
Yes,  glad — black-face  and  all!  Why,  many's  the 
time  I've  gone  home  from  the  theater,  too  tired  to 
take  off  my  make-up  until  I  got  into  my  own  rocker 
with  my  ankles  soaking  in  warm  water.  They 
swell  so  terribly  sometimes.  Rheumatism,  I  guess. 
Well,  many  a  time  when  I  kissed  her  in  her  sleep 
she's  opened  her  eyes  on  me — black-face  and  all. 
Her  arms  up  and  around  me.  I  was  there  under 
neath  the  black !  She  knows  that !  And  that's  what 
she'll  always  know  about  me,  no  matter  what  you 
tell  her.  I'm  there — her  mother — underneath  the 
black!  You  hear,  Morton!  That's  why  you  must 
let  us — live — " 

"My  proposition  is  the  mighty  decent  one  of  a 
gentleman." 

"She's  only  a  little  baby,  Morton.  And  just 
at  that  age  where  being  like  all  the  other  boys  and 
girls  is  the  whole  of  her  little  life.  It's  killing — all 
her  airiness  and  fads  and  fancies.  Such  a  proper 
little  young  lady.  You  know,  the  way  they  clip  and 
12  J7i 


THE    SMUDGE 

trim  them  at  finishing  school.  Sweet-sixteen  non 
sense  that  she'll  outgrow.  To-night,  Morton,  she's 
at  a  party.  A  boy's.  Her  first.  That  fine-looking 
yellow-haired  young  fellow  and  his  sister  that  bring 
her  home  every  afternoon.  At  their  house.  Gram- 
ercy  Park.  A  fine  young  fellow — Phi  Pi — " 

"Looka  here,  Hattie,  are  you  talking  against 
time?" 

11  She's  home  asleep  by  now.  I  told  her  she  had 
to  be  in  bed  by  eleven.  She  minds  me,  Morton.  I 
wouldn't — couldn't — wake  her.  Morton,  Morton, 
she's  yours  as  much  as  mine.  That's  God's  law,  no 
matter  how  much  man's  law  may  have  let  you  shirk 
your  responsibility.  Don't  hurt  your  own  flesh  and 
blood  by  coming  back  to  us — now.  I  remember 
once  when  you  cut  your  hand  it  made  you  ill. 
Blood!  Blood  is  warm.  Red.  Sacred  stuff.  She's 
your  blood,  Morton.  You  let  us  alone  when  we 
needed  you.  Leave  us  alone,  now  that  we  don't!" 

"But  you  do,  Hattie  girl.  That's  just  it.  You're 
running  things  a  woman's  way.  Why,  a  man  with 
the  right  promoting  ideas — " 

There  was  a  fusillade  of  bangs  on  the  door  now, 
and  a  shout  as  if  the  hair  on  the  voice  were  rising 
in  anger. 

"All  out  or  the  doors  '11  be  locked  on  yuh!  Fine 
doings!" 

She  grasped  her  light  wrap  from  its  hook,  and  her 
hat  with  its  whirl  of  dark  veil,  fitting  it  down  with 
difficulty  over  the  fizz  of  wig. 

"Come,  Morton,"  she  said,  suddenly.  "I'm 
ready.  You're  right,  now  or  never." 

"Your  face!" 

172 


THE    SMUDGE 

* '  No  time  now.  Later — at  home !  She'll  know  that 
I'm  there — under  the  black!" 

"So  do  I,  Hattie.    That's  why  I— " 

"I'm  not  one  of  the  ready-made  heroines  you 
read  about.  That's  not  my  idea  of  sacrifice!  I'd 
let  my  child  hang  her  head  of  my  shame  sooner 
than  stand  up  and  marry  you  to  save  her  from  it. 
Marcia  wouldn't  want  me  to !  She's  got  your  face — 
but  my  character!  She'll  fight!  She'll  glory  that  I 
had  the  courage  to  let  you  tell  her  the — truth!  Yes, 
she  will,"  she  cried,  her  voice  pleading  for  the  truth 
of  what  her  words  exclaimed.  * '  She'll  glory  in  having 
saved  me — from  you!  You  can  come!  Now,  too, 
while  I  have  the  strength  that  loathing  you  can  give 
me.  I  don't  want  you  skulking  about.  I  don't 
want  you  hanging  over  my  head — or  hers!  You 
can  tell  her  to-night — but  in  my  presence!  Come!" 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  repeated,  doggedly  and  still  more 
doggedly.  "Yes,  siree!"  Following  her,  trying  to 
be  grim,  but  his  lips  too  soft  to  click.  "Yes — sir!" 

They  drove  up  silently  through  a  lusterless  mid 
night  with  a  threat  of  rain  in  it,  hitting  loosely 
against  each  other  in  a  shiver-my- timbers  taxicab. 
Her  pallor  showing  through  the  brown  of  her  face 
did  something  horrid  to  her. 

It  was  as  if  the  skull  of  her,  set  in  torment,  were 
looking  through  a  transparent  black  mask,  but, 
because  there  were  not  lips,  forced  to  grin. 

And  yet,  do  you  know  that  while  she  rode  with 
him  Hattie's  heart  was  high?  So  high  that  when  she 
left  him  finally,  seated  in  her  little  lamplit  living 
room,  it  was  he  whose  unease  began  to  develop. 


THE    SMUDGE 

"I—    If  she's  asleep,  Hattie—" 

Her  head  looked  so  sure.  Thrust  back  and  sunk 
a  little  between  the  shoulders. 

"If  she's  asleep,  I'll  wake  her.  It's  better  this 
way.  I'm  glad,  now.  I  want  her  to  see  me  save 
myself.  She  would  want  me  to.  You  banked  on 
mock  heroics  from  me,  Morton.  You  lost." 

Marcia  was  asleep,  in  her  narrow,  pretty  bed 
with  little  bowknots  painted  on  the  pale  wood. 
About  the  room  all  the  tired  and  happy  muss  of 
after-the-party.  A  white- taffeta  dress  with  a  whis 
per  of  real  lace  at  the  neck,  almost  stiffishly  seated, 
as  if  with  Marcia's  trimness,  on  a  chair.  A  steam 
of  white  tulle  on  the  dressing  table.  A  button 
hole  gardenia  in  a  tumbler  of  water.  One  long  white- 
kid  glove  on  the  table  beside  the  night  light.  A 
naked  cherub  in  a  high  hat,  holding  a  pink  umbrella 
for  the  lamp  shade. 

"Dear  me!  Dear  me!"  screamed  Hattie  to  her 
self,  fighting  to  keep  her  mind  on  the  plane  of  casual 
things.  "She's  lost  a  glove  again.  Dear  me!  Dear 
me!  I  hope  it's  a  left  one  to  match  up  with  the 
right  one  she  saved  from  the  last  pair.  Dear  me ! " 

She  picked  up  a  white  film  of  stocking,  turning 
and  exploring  with  spread  fingers  in  the  foot  part 
for  holes.  There  was  one!  Marcia's  big  toe  had 
danced  right  through.  "Dear  me!" 

Marcia  sleeping.  Very  quietly  and  very  deeply. 
She  slept  like  that.  Whitely  and  straightly  and 
with  the  covers  scarcely  raised  for  the  ridge  of  her 
slim  body. 

Sometimes  Marcia  asleep  could  frighten  Hattie. 
There  was  something  about  her  white  stilliness. 


THE    SMUDGE 

Lilies  are  too  fair  and  so  must  live  briefly.  That 
thought  could  clutch  so  that  she  would  kiss  Marcia 
awake.  Kiss  her  soundly  because  Marcia's  sleep 
could  be  so  terrifyingly  deep. 

"Marcia,"  said  Hattie,  and  stood  over  her  bed. 
Then  again,  "Mar-cia!"  On  more  voice  than  she 
thought  her  dry  throat  could  yield  her. 

There  was  the  merest  flip  of  black  on  the  lacy 
bosom  of  Marcia's  nightgown,  and  Hattie  leaned 
down  to  fleck  it.  No.  It  was  a  pin — a  small  black- 
enameled  pin  edged  in  pearls.  Automatically  Hattie 
knew. 

"Pi  Phi!" 

1 '  Marcia, ' '  cried  Hattie,  and  shook  her  a  little.  She 
hated  so  to  waken  her.  Always  had.  Especially  for 
school  on  rainy  days.  Sometimes  didn't.  Couldn't. 
Marcia  came  up  out  of  sleep  so  reluctantly.  A  little 
dazed.  A  little  secretive.  As  if  a  white  bull  in  a 
dream  had  galloped  off  with  her  like  Persephone's. 

Only  Hattie  did  not  know  of  Persephone.  She 
only  knew  that  Marcia  slept  beautifully  and  almost 
breathlessly.  Sweet  and  low.  It  seemed  silly, 
sleeping  beautifully.  But  just  the  same,  Marcia  did. 

Then  Hattie,  not  faltering,  mind  you,  waited. 
It  was  better  that  Marcia  should  know.  Now,  too, 
while  her  heart  was  so  high. 

Sometimes  it  took  as  many  as  three  kisses  to 
awaken  Marcia.  Hattie  bent  for  the  first  one,  a 
sound  one  on  the  tip  of  her  lip. 

"Marcia!"  she  cried.  "Marcy,  wake  up!"  and 
drew  back. 

Something  had  happened!  Darkly.  A  smudge 
the  size  of  a  quarter  and  the  color  of  Hattie's  guaran- 

i7S 


THE   SMUDGE 

teed-not-to-fade  cheek,  lay  incredibly  on  Marcia's 
whiteness. 

Hattie  had  smudged  Marcia !  Hattie  Had  Smudged 
Marcia! 

There  it  lay  on  her  beautiful,  helpless  whiteness. 
Hattie's  smudge. 

It  is  doubtful,  from  the  way  he  waited  with  his 
soft  hat  dangling  from  soft  fingers,  if  Morton  had 
ever  really  expected  anything  else.  Momentary 
unease  gone,  he  was  quiet  and  Southern  and  even 
indolent  about  it. 

"We'll  go  to  Greenwich  first  thing  in  the  morning 
and  be  married,"  he  said. 

' '  Sh-h-h ! ' '  she  whispered  to  his  quietness.  ' '  Don't 
wake  Marcia." 

"Hattie — "  he  said,  and  started  to  touch  her. 

"Don't!"  she  sort  of  cried  under  her  whisper, 
but  not  without  noting  that  his  hand  was  ready 
enough  to  withdraw.  "Please — go — now — " 

"To-morrow  at  the  station,  then.  Eleven.  There's 
a  train  every  hour  for  Greenwich." 

He  was  all  tan  to  her  now,  standing  there  like  a 
blur. 

"Yes,  Morton,  I'll  be  there.  If — please — you'll 
go  now." 

"Of  course,"  he  said.  "Late.  Only  I—  Well, 
paying  the  taxi — strapped  me — temporarily.  A  ten 
spot — old  Hat — would  help." 

She  gave  him  her  purse,  a  tiny  leather  one  with  a 
patent  clasp.  Somehow  her  fingers  were  not  flexible 
enough  to  open  it. 

His  were. 

176 


THE    SMUDGE 

There  were  a  few  hours  of  darkness  left,  and  she 
sat  them  out,  exactly  as  he  had  left  her,  on  the 
piano  stool,  looking  at  the  silence. 

Toward  morning  quite  an  equinoctial  storm  swept 
the  city,  banging  shutters  and  signs,  and  a  steeple  on 
i22d  Street  was  struck  by  lightning. 

And  so  it  was  that  Hattie's  wedding  day  came  up 
like  thunder. 


GUILTY 


GUILTY 

TO  the  swift  hiss  of  rain  down  soot-greasy  window 
panes  and  through  a  medley  of  the  smells  of 
steam  off  wet  overcoats  and  a  pale  stench  of  fish,  a 
judge  turned  rather  tired  Friday-afternoon  eyes 
upon  the  prisoner  at  the  bar,  a  smallish  man  in  a 
decent-enough  salt-and-pepper  suit  and  more  salt 
than  pepper  in  his  hair  and  mustache. 

"You  have  heard  the  charge  against  you,"  intoned 
the  judge  in  the  holy  and  righteous  key  of  justice 
about  to  be  administered.  "Do  you  plead  guilty 
or  not  guilty?" 

"I — I  plead  guilty  of  not  having  told  her  facts 
that  would  have  helped  her  to  struggle  against  the — 
the  thing — her  inheritance." 

' '  You  must  answer  the  Court  directly.    Do  you — ' ' 

"You  see,  Your  Honor — my  little  girl — so  little — 
my  promise.  Yes,  yes,  I — I  plead  guilty  of  keeping 
her  in  ignorance  of  what  she  should  have  known, 
but  you  see,  Your  Honor,  my  little  gi — " 

"Order!  Answer  to  the  point.  Do  you,"  began 
the  judge  again,  "plead  guilty  or  not  guilty?"  his 
tongue  chiming  the  repetition  into  the  waiting  silence 
like  a  clapper  into  a  bell. 

The  prisoner  at  the  bar  thumbed  his  derby  hat 
after  the  immemorial  dry-fingered  fashion  of  the 
hunted  meek,  his  mouth  like  an  open  wound  pucker 
ing  to  close. 

181 


GUILTY 

"Guilty  or  not  guilty,  my  man?    Out  with  it." 
Actually  it  was  not  more  than  a  minute  or  two 
before  the  prisoner  found  reply,  but  it  was  long 
enough  for  his  tortured  eye  to  flash  inward  and  back 
ward  with  terrible  focus. 


On  its  long  cross-town  block,  Mrs.  Plush's  board 
ing  house  repeated  itself  no  less  than  thirty-odd 
times.  Every  front  hall  of  them  smelled  like  cold 
boiled  potato,  and  the  gilt  chair  in  the  parlor  like 
banana.  At  dinner  hour  thirty-odd  basement  dining 
rooms  reverberated,  not  uncheerfully,  to  the  iron 
stone  clatter  of  the  canary-bird  bathtub  of  succo 
tash,  the  three  stewed  prunes,  or  the  redolent  boiled 
potato,  and  on  Saturday  mornings,  almost  to  the 
thirty-odd  of  them,  wasp-waisted,  oiled-haired  young 
negro  girls  in  white-cotton  stockings  and  cut-down 
high  shoes  enormously  and  rather  horribly  run  down 
of  heel,  tilted  pints  of  water  over  steep  stone  stoops 
and  scratched  at  the  trickle  with  old  broom  runts. 

If  Mrs.  Plush's  house  broke  rank  at  all,  it  did  so 
by  praiseworthy  omission.  In  that  row  of  the  fly- 
by-night  and  the  van-by-day,  the  moving  or  the 
express  wagon  seldom  backed  up  before  No.  28, 
except  immediately  preceding  a  wedding  or  fol 
lowing  a  funeral.  And  never,  in  twenty-two  years 
of  respectable  tenancy,  had  the  furtive  lodger  oozed, 
under  darkness,  through  the  Plush  front  door  by 
night,  or  a  huddle  of  sidewalk  trunks  and  trappings 
staged  the  drab  domestic  tragedy  of  the  dispossessed. 

The  Kellers  (second-story  back)  had  eaten  their 
satisfied  way  through  fourteen  years  of  the  break- 

182 


GUILTY 

fasts  of  apple  sauce  or  cereal ;  choice  of  ham  and  eggs 
any  style  or  country  sausage  and  buckwheat  cakes. 

Jeanette  Peopping,  born  in  the  back  parlor,  was 
married  out  of  the  front. 

On  the  night  that  marked  the  seventeenth  anni 
versary  of  the  Bangs  into  the  third-floor  alcove 
room  there  was  frozen  pudding  with  hot  fudge  sauce 
for  dessert,  and  a  red-paper  bell  ringing  silently 
from  the  dining-room  chandelier. 

For  the  eight  years  of  their  placid  connubiality 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Henry  Jett  had  occupied  the  second- 
story  front. 

Stability,  that  was  the  word.  Why,  Mrs.  Plush 
had  dealt  with  her  corner  butcher  for  so  long  that 
on  crowded  Saturday  mornings  it  was  her  custom  to 
step  without  challenge  into  the  icy  zone  of  the  huge 
refrigerator,  herself  pinching  and  tearing  back  the 
cold-storage-bitten  wings  of  fowls,  weighing  them 
with  a  fidelity  to  the  ounce,  except  for  a  few  extra 
giblets  (Mr.  Keller  loved  them),  hers,  anyhow,  most 
of  the  time,  for  the  asking. 

Even  the  nearest  drug  store,  wary  of  that  row  of 
the  transient  hat-on-the-peg,  off-the-peg,  would 
deliver  to  No.  28  a  mustard  plaster  or  a  deck  of 
cards  and  charge  without  question. 

To  the  Jett  Fish  Company,  "  Steamers,  Hotels, 
and  Restaurants  Supplied — If  It  Swims  We  Have 
It,"  Mrs.  Plush  paid  her  bill  quarterly  only,  then 
Mr.  Jett  deducting  the  sum  delicately  from  his  board. 

So  it  may  be  seen  that  Mrs.  Plush's  boarding 
house  offered  scanty  palate  to  the  dauber  in  local 
color. 

On  each  of  the  three  floors  was  a  bathroom,  spot- 
183 


GUILTY 

lessly  clean,  with  a  neat  hand-lettered  sign  over 
each  tin  tub: 

Do  UNTO  OTHERS  AS  You  WOULD  HAVE  THEM  Do  UNTO  You 
PLEASE  WASH  OUT  THE  TUB  AFTER  You 

Upon  the  outstanding  occasion  of  the  fly  in  the 
soup  and  Mr.  Keller's  subsequent  deathly  illness, 
the  regrettable  immersion  had  been  directly  trace 
able,  not  to  the  kitchen,  but  to  the  dining-room 
ceiling.  It  was  November,  a  season  of  heavy  dipter 
ous  mortality.  Besides,  Mrs.  Peopping  had  seen  it 
fall. 

Nor  entered  here  the  dirge  of  the  soggy  towel; 
Mrs.  Plush  placed  fluffy  stacks  of  them  outside 
each  door  each  morning.  Nor  groggy  coffee ;  Mrs. 
Plush  was  famous  for  hers.  Drip  coffee,  boiled  up 
to  an  angry  sea  and  half  an  eggshell  dropped  in  like 
a  fairy  barque,  to  settle  it. 

The  Jetts,  with  whom  we  have  really  to  do,  drank 
two  cups  apiece  at  breakfast.  Mrs.  Jett,  to  the 
slight  aid  and  abetment  of  one  of  her  two  rolls, 
stopped  right  there;  Mr.  Jett  plunging  on  into 
choice-of — 

The  second  roll  Mrs.  Jett  usually  carried  away 
with  her  from  the  table.  Along  about  ten  o'clock 
she  was  apt  to  feel  faint  rather  than  hungry. 

"Gone,"  she  called  it.     "Feeling  a  little  gone." 

Not  that  there  was  a  suggestion  of  frailty  about 
Mrs.  Jett.  Anything  but  that.  On  the  contrary, 
in  all  the  eight  years  in  the  boarding  house,  she  held 
the  clean  record  of  not  a  day  in  bed,  and  although 
her  history  previous  to  that  time  showed  as  many  as 

184 


GUILTY 

fifteen  hours  a  day  on  duty  in  the  little  fancy-goods 
store  of  her  own  proprietorship,  those  years  showed 
her  guilty  of  only  two  incapacitated  days,  and  then 
because  she  ran  an  embroidery  needle  under  her 
finger  nail  and  suffered  a  slight  infection. 

Yet  there  was  something  about  Emma  Jett — 
eight  years  of  married  life  had  not  dissipated  it — 
that  was  not  eupeptic;  something  of  the  sear  and 
yellow  leaf  of  perpetual  spinsterhood.  She  was  a 
wintry  little  body  whose  wide  marriage  band  always 
hung  loosely  on  her  finger  with  an  air  of  not  belong 
ing;  wore  an  invariable  knitted  shawl  iced  with 
beads  across  her  round  shoulders,  and  frizzed 
her  graying  bangs,  which,  although  fruit  of  her 
scalp,  had  a  set-on  look.  Even  the  softness  to  her 
kind  gray  eyes  was  cozy  rather  than  warm. 

She  could  look  out  tabbily  from  above  a  lap  of 
handiwork,  but  in  her  boudoir  wrapper  of  gray 
flannelette  scalloped  in  black  she  was  scrawny, 
almost  rangy,  like  a  horse  whose  ribs  show. 

"I  can  no  more  imagine  those  two  courting,"  Mrs. 
Keller,  a  proud  twin  herself  and  proud  mother  of 
twins,  remarked  one  afternoon  to  a  euchre  group. 
"They  must  have  sat  company  by  correspondence. 
Why,  they  won't  even  kiss  when  he  comes  home  if 
there's  anybody  in  the  room!" 

"They  kiss,  all  right,"  volunteered  Mrs.  Dang 
of  the  bay-window  alcove  ~oom,  "and  she  waves 
him  good-by  every  morning  clear  down  the  block." 

"You  can't  tell  about  anybody  nowadays," 
vouchsafed  some  one,  tremendously. 

But  in  the  end  the  consensus  of  opinion,  unani 
mous  to  the  vote,  was:  Lovely  woman,  Mrs.  Jett. 

185 


GUILTY 

Nice  couple;    so  unassuming.     The  goodness  looks 
out  of  her  face;   and  so  reserved! 

But  it  was  this  aura  of  reserve  that  kept  Mrs. 
Jett,  not  without  a  bit  of  secret  heartache  about  it, 
as  remote  from  the  little  world  about  her  as  the  yolk 
of  an  egg  is  remote  from  the  white.  Surrounded, 
yet  no  part  of  those  surroundings.  No  osmosis 
took  place. 

Almost  daily,  in  some  one  or  another's  room,  over 
Honiton  lace  or%the  making  of  steel-bead  chatelaine 
bags,  then  so  much  in  vogue,  those  immediate, 
plushy-voiced  gatherings  of  the  members  of  the 
plain  gold  circle  took  place.  Delicious  hours  of 
confidence,  confab,  and  the  exchanges  of  the  con 
nubially  loquacious. 

The  supreme  Use  majestt  of  the  married  woman 
who  wears  her  state  of  wedlock  like  a  crown  of 
blessed  thorns;  bleeds  ecstatically  and  swaps  after 
noon-long  intimacies,  made  nasty  by  the  plush  in 
her  voice,  with  her  sisters  of  the  matrimonial  dynasty. 

Mrs.  Jett  was  also  bidden,  by  her  divine  right,  to 
those  conclaves  of  the  wives,  and  faithfully  she 
attended,  but  on  the  rim,  as  it  were.  Bitterly  silent 
she  sat  to  the  swap  of: 

"That's  nothing.  After  Jeanette  was  born  my 
hair  began  to  fall  out  just  as  if  I  had  had  typhoid"; 
or,  "Both  of  mine,  I  am  proud  to  say,  were  bottle 
babies";  and  once,  as  she  listened,  her  heart  might 
have  been  a  persimmon,  puckering:  "The  idea  for 
a  woman  of  forty-five  to  have  her  first!  It's  not 
fair  to  the  child." 

They  could  not,  of  course,  articulate  it,  but  the 
fact  of  the  matter  was  not  alone  that  Mrs.  Jett  was 

1 86 


GUILTY 

childless  (so  was  Mrs.  Dang,  who  somehow  belonged), 
it  was  that  they  sensed,  with  all  the  antennae  of  their 
busy  little  intuitions,  the  ascetic  odor  of  spinster- 
hood  which  clung  to  Mrs.  Jett.  She  was  a  little 
"too  nice."  Would  flush  at  some  of  the  innuendoes 
of  the  conies  intimes,  tales  of  no  luster  and  dulled  by 
soot,  but  in  spite  of  an  inner  shrinkage  would  loop 
up  her  mouth  to  smile,  because  not  to  do  so  was  to 
linger  even  more  remotely  outside  the  privileged  rim 
of  the  wedding  band. 

Evenings,  after  these  gatherings,  Mrs.  Jett  was 
invariably  even  a  bit  gentler  than  her  wont  in  her 
greetings  to  Mr.  Jett. 

Of  course,  they  kissed  upon  his  arrival  home,  com 
ment  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  in  a  taken- 
for-gr  anted  fashion,  perhaps,  but  there  was  some 
thing  sweet  about  their  utter  unexcitement ;  and 
had  the  afternoon  session  twisted  her  heart  more 
than  usual,  Mrs.  Jett  was  apt  to  place  a  second  kiss 
lightly  upon  the  black  and  ever  so  slightly  white 
mustache,  or  lay  her  cheek  momentarily  to  his,  as 
if  to  atone  by  thus  yearning  over  him  for  the  one 
aching  and  silent  void  between  them. 

But  in  the  main  Henry  Jett  was  a  contented  and 
happy  man. 

His  wife,  whom  he  had  met  at  a  church  social  and 
wooed  in  the  front  of  the  embroidery  and  fancy-goods 
store,  fitted  him  like  the  proverbial  glove — a  suede 
one.  In  the  eight  years  since,  his  fish  business  had 
almost  doubled,  and  his  expenses,  if  anything,  de 
creased,  because  more  and  more  it  became  pleasanter 
to  join  in  the  evening  game  of  no-stakes  euchre 
down  in  the  front  parlor  or  to  remain  quietly  up- 
13  187 


GUILTY 

stairs,  a  gas  lamp  on  the  table  between  them,  Mr. 
Jett  in  a  dressing  gown  of  hand-embroidered  Persian 
design  and  a  newspaper  which  he  read  from  first  to 
last;  Mfs.  Jett  at  her  tranquil  process  of  fine 
needlework. 

Their  room  abounded  in  specimens  of  it.  Center 
pieces  of  rose  design.  Mounds  of  cushions  stamped 
in  bulldog's  head  and  pipe  and  appropriately  etched 
in  colored  floss.  A  poker  hand,  upheld  by  realistic 
five  fingers  embroidered  to  the  life,  and  the  cuff 
button  denoted  by  a  blue-glass  jewel.  Across  their 
bed,  making  it  a  dais  of  incongruous  splendor,  was 
flung  a  great  counterpane  of  embroidered  linen,  in 
design  as  narrative  as  a  battle-surging  tapestry  and 
every  thread  in  it  woven  out  of  these  long,  quiet 
evenings  by  the  lamp  side. 

He  was  exceedingly  proud  of  her  cunning  with  a 
needle,  so  fine  that  its  stab  through  the  cloth  was 
too  slight  to  be  seen,  and  would  lose  no  occasion  to 
show  off  the  many  evidences  of  her  delicate  work 
manship  that  were  everywhere  about  the  room. 

"It's  like  being  able  to  create  a  book  or  a  piece  of 
music,  Em,  to  say  all  that  on  a  piece  of  cloth  with 
nothing  but  a  needle." 

"It's  a  good  thing  I  am  able  to  create  something, 
Henry,"  placing  her  thimbled  hand  on  his  shoulder 
and  smiling  down.  She  was  slightly  the  taller. 

It  was  remarkable  how  quick  and  how  tender  his 
intuitions  could  be.  An  innuendo  from  her,  faint  as 
the  brush  of  a  wing,  and  he  would  immediately  cluck 
with  his  tongue  and  throw  out  quite  a  bravado  of 
chest. 

"You're  all  right,  Em.    You  suit  me." 
188 


GUILTY 

"And  you  suit  me,  Henry/'  stroking  his  hand. 

This  he  withdrew.  It  was  apt  to  smell  of  fish  and 
he  thought  that  once  or  twice  he  had  noticed  her 
draw  back  from  it,  and,  anyway,  he  was  exceedingly 
delicate  about  the  cling  of  the  rottenly  pungent  fish 
odor  of  his  workaday s. 

Not  that  he  minded  personally.  He  had  long  ago 
ceased  to  have  any  consciousness  of  the  vapors  that 
poured  from  the  bins  and  the  incoming  catches  into 
his  little  partitioned-off  office.  But  occasionally  he 
noticed  that  in  street  cars  noses  would  begin  to 
crinkle  around  him,  and  every  once  in  a  while,  even 
in  a  crowded  conveyance  he  would  find  himself  the 
center  of  a  little  oasis  of  vacant  seats  which  he  had 
created  around  himself. 

Immediately  upon  his  arrival  home,  although  his 
hands  seldom  touched  the  fish,  he  would  wash  them 
in  a  solution  of  warm  water  and  carbolic  acid,  and 
most  of  the  time  he  changed  his  suit  before  dinner, 
from  a  salt-and-pepper  to  a  pepper-and-salt,  the 
only  sartorial  variety  in  which  he  ever  indulged. 

His  wife  was  invariably  touched  by  this  little 
nicety  of  his,  and  sometimes  bravely  forced  his  hand 
to  her  cheek  to  prove  her  lack  of  repugnance. 

Boarding-house  lore  had  it  correctly.  They  were 
an  exceedingly  nice  couple,  the  Jetts. 

One  day  in  autumn,  with  the  sky  the  color 
and  heaviness  of  a  Lynnhaven  oyster,  Mrs.  Jett 
sat  quite  unusually  forward  on  her  chair  at  one 
of  the  afternoon  congresses  of  the  wives,  convened 
in  Mrs.  Peopping's  back  parlor,  Jeanette  Peopping, 
aged  four,  sweet  and  blond,  whom  the  Jetts  loved 
to  borrow  Sunday  mornings,  while  she  was  still  in 

189 


GUILTY 

her  little  nightdress,  playing   paper    dolls   in    the 
background. 

Her  embroidery  hoop,  with  a  large  shaded  pink 
rose  in  the  working,  had,  contrary  to  her  custom, 
fallen  from  idle  hands,  and  instead  of  following  the 
dart  of  the  infinitesimal  needle,  Mrs.  Jett's  eyes 
were  burningly  upon  Mrs.  Peopping,  following,  with 
almost  lip-reading  intensity,  that  worthy  lady's 
somewhat  voluptuous  mou things. 

She  was  a  large,  light  person  with  protuberant 
blue  eyes  that  looked  as  if  at  some  time  they  had 
been  two-thirds  choked  from  their  sockets  and  a 
characteristic  of  opening  every  sentence  with  her 
mouth  shaped  to  an  explosive  O,  which  she  filled 
with  as  much  breath  as  it  would  hold. 

It  had  been  a  long  tale  of  obstetrical  fact  and 
fancy,  told  plushily,  of  course,  against  the  dangerous 
little  ears  of  Jeanette,  and  at  its  conclusion  Mrs. 
Peopping's  steel-bead  bag,  half  finished,  lay  in  a 
huddle  at  her  feet,  her  pink  and  flabby  face  turned 
reminiscently  toward  the  fire. 

" — and  for  three  days  six  doctors  gave  me  up. 
Why,  I  didn't  see  Jeanette  until  the  fourteenth  day, 
when  most  women  are  up  and  out.  The  crisis,  you 
know.  My  night  nurse,  an  awful  sweet  girl — I  send 
her  a  Christmas  present  to  this  day — said  if  I  had 
been  six  years  younger  it  wouldn't  have  gone  so  hard 
with  me.  I  always  say  if  the  men  knew  what  we 
women  go  through —  Maybe  if  some  of  them  had 
to  endure  the  real  pain  themselves  they  would  have 
something  to  do  besides  walk  up  and  down  the  hall  and 
turn  pale  at  the  smell  of  ether  coming  through  the  key 
hole.  Ah  me!  I've  been  a  great  sufferer  in  my  day." 

190 


GUILTY 

"Thu,  thu,  thu,"  and,  "I  could  tell  tales,"  and, 
"I've  been  through  my  share" — from  various  points 
of  vantage  around  the  speaker. 

It  was  then  that  Mrs.  Jett  sat  forward  on  the  edge 
of  the  straight  chair,  and  put  her  question. 

There  was  a  pause  after  it  had  fallen  into  the 
silence,  as  if  an  intruder  had  poked  her  head  in 
through  the  door,  and  it  brought  only  the  most 
negligible  answer  from  Mrs.  Peopping. 

"Forty-three." 

Almost  immediately  Mrs.  Dang  caught  at  the 
pause  for  a  case  in  point  that  had  been  trembling 
on  her  lips  all  during  Mrs.  Peopping 's  recital. 

"A  doctor  once  told  a  second  cousin  of  my  sister- 
in-law's — "  and  so  on  ad  infinitum,  ad  lib.,  and 
ad  nauseaum. 

That  night  Mrs.  Jett  did  an  unprecedented  thing. 
She  crept  into  the  crevice  of  her  husband's  arm  from 
behind  as  he  stood  in  his  waistcoat,  washing  his 
hands  in  the  carbolic  solution  at  the  bowl  and  wash- 
stand.  He  turned,  surprised,  unconsciously  placing 
himself  between  her  and  the  reeky  water. 

"Henry,"  she  said,  rubbing  up  against  the  alpaca 
back  to  his  vest  like  an  ingratiating  Maltese  tabby, 
"Hen-ery." 

"In  a  minute,  Em,"  he  said,  rather  puzzled  and 
wishing  she  would  wait. 

Suddenly,  swinging  herself  back  from  him  by  his 
waistcoat  lapel,  easily,  because  of  his  tenseness  to 
keep  her  clear  of  the  bowl  of  water,  she  directed  her 
eyes  straight  into  his. 

"Hen-ery — Hen-ery,"  each  pronouncement  of  his 
name  surging  higher  in  her  throat. 


GUILTY 

"Why,  Em?" 

"Hen-ery,  I  haven't  words  sweet  enough  to  tell 
you." 

"Em,  tell  what?"  And  stopped.  He  could  see 
suddenly  that  her  eyes  were  full  of  new  pins  of 
light  and  his  lightening  intuition  performed  a  miracle 
of  understanding. 

"Emmy!"  he  cried,  jerking  her  so  that  her  breath 
jumped,  and  at  the  sudden  drench  of  tears  down  her 
face  sat  her  down,  supporting  her  roundish  back 
with  his  wet  hands,  although  he  himself  felt  weak. 

"I — can't  say — what  I  feel,  Henry — only — God  is 
good  and — I'm  not  afraid." 

He  held  her  to  his  shoulder  and  let  her  tears  rain 
down  into  his  watch  pocket,  so  shaken  that  he  found 
himself  mouthing  silent  words. 

"God  is  good,  Henry,  isn't  He?" 

"Yes,  Emmy,  yes.    Oh,  my  Emmy!" 

"It  must  have  been  our  prayers,  Henry." 

"Well,"  sheepishly,  "not  exactly  mine,  Emmy; 
you're  the  saint  of  this  family.  But  I — I've  wished." 

"Henry.  I'm  so  happy — Mrs.  Peopping  had 
Jeanette  at  forty-three.  Three  years  older  than  me. 
I'm  not  afraid." 

It  was  then  he  looked  down  at  her  graying  head 
there,  prone  against  his  chest,  and  a  dart  of  fear 
smote  him. 

"Emmy,"  he  cried,  dragging  her  tear-happy  face 
up  to  his,  "if  you're  afraid — not  for  anything  in  the 
world!  You're  first,  Em." 

She  looked  at  him  with  her  eyes  two  lamps. 

"Afraid?  That's  the  beautiful  part,  Henry. 
I'm  not.  Only  happy.  Why  afraid,  Henry — if 

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GUILTY 

others  dare  it  at — forty-three —  You  mean  because 
it  was  her  second?" 

He  faced  her  with  a  scorch  of  embarrassment  in 
his  face. 

"You —  We —  Well,  we're  not  spring  chickens 
any  more,  Em.  If  you  are  sure  it's  not  too — " 

She  hugged  him,  laughing  her  tears. 

"I'm  all  right,  Henry — we've  been  too  happy  not 
to — to — perpetuate — it. ' ' 

This  time  he  did  not  answer.  His  cheek  was 
against  the  crochet  of  her  yoke  and  she  could  hear 
his  sobs  with  her  heart. 


Miraculously,  like  an  amoeba  reaching  out  to 
inclose  unto  itself,  the  circle  opened  with  a  gasp  of 
astonishment  that  filled  Mrs.  Peopping's  O  to  its 
final  stretch  and  took  unto  its  innermost  Emma  Jett. 

Nor  did  she  wear  her  initiation  lightly.  There  was 
a  new  tint  out  in  her  long  cheeks,  and  now  her  chair, 
a  rocker,  was  but  one  removed  from  Mrs.  Peopping's. 

Oh,  the  long,  sweet  afternoons  over  garments 
that  made  needlework  sublime.  No  longer  the 
padded  rose  on  the  centerpiece  or  the  futile  doily, 
but  absurd  little  dresses  with  sleeves  that  she 
measured  to  the  length  of  her  hand,  and  yokes  cut 
out  to  the  pattern  of  a  playing  card,  and  all  fretted 
over  with  feather-stitching  that  was  frailer  than 
maidenhair  fern  and  must  have  cost  many  an  eye- 
ache,  which,  because  of  its  source,  was  easy  to  bear. 

And  there  happened  to  Mrs.  Jett  that  queer 
juvenescence  that  sometimes  comes  to  men  and 
women  in  middle  life.  She  who  had  enjoyed  no  par- 


GUILTY 

ticular  youth  (her  father  had  died  in  a  ferryboat 
crash  two  weeks  before  her  birth,  and  her  mother 
three  years  after)  came  suddenly  to  acquire  come 
liness  which  her  youth  had  never  boasted. 

The  round-shouldered,  long-cheeked  girl  had 
matured  gingerly  to  rather  sparse  womanhood  that 
now  at  forty  relented  back  to  a  fulsome  thirty. 

Perhaps  it  was  the  tint  of  light  out  in  her  face, 
perhaps  the  splendor  of  the  vision ;  but  at  any  rate, 
in  those  precious  months  to  come,  Mrs.  Jett  came  to 
look  herself  as  she  should  have  looked  ten  years  back. 

They  were  timid  and  really  very  beautiful  together, 
she  and  Henry  Jett.  He  came  to  regard  her  as  a  vase 
of  porcelain,  and,  in  his  ignorance,  regarded  the  doc 
tor's  mandates  harsh ;  would  not  permit  her  to  walk, 
but  ordered  a  hansom  cab  every  day  from  three  to 
four,  Mrs.  Jett  alternating  punctiliously  with  each 
of  the  boarding-house  ladies  for  driving  companion. 

Every  noon,  for  her  delectation  at  luncheon,  he 
sent  a  boy  from  the  store  with  a  carton  of  her  special 
favorites — Blue  Point  oysters.  She  suddenly  liked 
them  small  because,  as  she  put  it,  they  went  down 
easier,  and  he  thought  that  charming.  Lynnhavens 
for  mortals  of  tougher  growth. 

Long  evenings  they  spent  at  names,  exercising 
their  pre-determination  as  to  sex.  "Ann"  was  her 
choice,  and  he  was  all  for  canceling  his  preference 
for  "Elizabeth,"  until  one  morning  she  awakened  to 
the  white  light  of  inspiration. 

' '  I  have  it !    Why  not  Ann  Elizabeth  ? ' ' 

"Great!"  And  whistled  so  through  his  shaving 
that  his  mouth  was  rayed  with  a  dark  sunburst  of 
beard  where  the  razor  had  not  found  surface, 

i94 


GUILTY 

They  talked  of  housekeeping,  reluctantly,  it  is 
true,  because  Mrs.  Plush  herself  was  fitting  up,  of 
hard-to-spare  evenings,  a  basinette  of  pink  and 
white.  They  even  talked  of  schools. 

Then  came  the  inevitable  time  when  Mrs.  Jett 
lost  interest.  Quite  out  of  a  clear  sky  even  the 
Blue  Points  were  taboo,  and  instead  of  joining  this 
or  that  card  or  sewing  circle,  there  were  long  after 
noons  of  stitching  away  alone,  sometimes  the  smile 
out  on  her  face,  sometimes  not. 

''Em,  is  it  all  right  with  you?"  Henry  asked  her 
once  or  twice,  anxiously. 

"Of  course  it  is!  If  I  weren't  this  way — now — it 
wouldn't  be  natural.  You  don't  understand." 

He  didn't,  so  could  only  be  vaguely  and  futilely 
sorry. 

Then  one  day  something  quite  horrible,  in  a  small 
way,  happened  to  Mrs.  Jett.  Sitting  sewing,  sud 
denly  it  seemed  to  her  that  through  the  very  fluid  of 
her  eyeballs,  as  it  were,  floated  a  school  of  fish. 
Small  ones — young  smelts,  perhaps — with  oval  lips, 
fillips  to  their  tails,  and  sides  that  glisted. 

She  laid  down  her  bit  of  linen  lawn,  fingers  to  her 
lids  as  if  to  squeeze  out  their  tiredness.  She  was 
trembling  from  the  unpleasantness,  and  for  a  fright 
ened  moment  could  not  swallow.  Then  she  rose, 
shook  out  her  skirts,  and  to  be  rid  of  the  moment 
carried  her  sewing  up  to  Mrs.  Bang's,  where  a 
euchre  game  was  in  session,  and  by  a  few  adroit 
questions  in  between  deals  gained  the  reassurance 
that  a  nervous  state  in  her  " condition"  was  highly 
normal. 

She  felt  easier,  but  there  was  the  same  horrid 


GUILTY 

recurrence  three  times  that  week.  Once  during  an 
evening  of  lotto  down  in  the  front  parlor  she  pushed 
back  from  the  table  suddenly,  hand  flashing  up  to 
her  throat. 

"Em!"  said  Mr.  Jett,  who  was  calling  the 
numbers. 

"It's  nothing,"  she  faltered,  and  then,  regaining 
herself  more  fully,  "nothing,"  she  repeated,  the 
roundness  out  in  her  voice  this  time. 

The  women  exchanged  knowing  glances. 

"She's  all  right,"  said  Mrs.  Peopping,  omnipo 
tently.  "Those  things  pass." 

Going  upstairs  that  evening,  alone  in  the  hallway, 
they  flung  an  arm  each  across  the  other's  shoulder, 
crowding  playfully  up  the  narrow  flight. 

"Emmy,"  he  said,  "poor  Em,  everything  will  be 
all  right." 

She  restrained  an  impulse  to  cry.  '  *  Poor  nothing, ' ' 
she  said. 

But  neither  the  next  evening,  which  was  Friday, 
nor  for  Fridays  thereafter,  would  she  venture  down 
for  fish  dinner,  dining  cozily  up  in  her  room  off  milk 
toast  and  a  fluffy  meringue  dessert  prepared  espe 
cially  by  Mrs.  Plush.  It  was  floating-island  night 
downstairs. 

Henry  puzzled  a  bit  over  the  Fridays.  It  was  his 
heaviest  day  at  the  business,  and  it  was  upsetting 
to  come  home  tired  and  feel  her  place  beside  him  at 
the  basement  dinner  table  vacant. 

But  the  women's  nods  were  more  knowing  than 
ever,  the  reassuring  insinuations  more  and  more 
delicate. 

But  one  night,  out  of  one  of  those  stilly  cisterns  of 
196 


GUILTY 

darkness  that  between  two  and  four  are  deepest  with 
sleep,  Henry  was  awakened  on  the  crest  of  such  a 
blow  and  yell  that  he  swam  up  to  consciousness  in 
a  ready-made  armor  of  high-napped  gooseflesh. 

A  regrettable  thing  had  happened.  Awakened, 
too,  on  the  high  tide  of  what  must  have  been  a 
disturbing  dream,  Mrs.  Jett  flung  out  her  arm  as  if 
to  ward  off  something.  That  arm  encountered 
Henry,  snoring  lightly  in  his  sleep  at  her  side.  But, 
unfortunately,  to  that  frightened  fling  of  her  arm 
Henry  did  not  translate  himself  to  her  as  Henry. 

That  was  a  fish  lying  there  beside  her!  A  man- 
sized  fish  with  its  mouth  jerked  open  to  the  shape  of 
a  gasp  and  the  fillip  still  through  its  enormous  body, 
as  if  its  flanks  were  'uncomfortably  dry.  A  fish ! 

With  a  shriek  that  tore  a  jagged  rent  through  the 
darkness  Mrs.  Jett  began  pounding  at  the  slippery 
flanks,  her  hands  sliding  off  its  shininess. 

"Out!  Out!  Henry,  where  are  you?  Help  me! 
O  God,  don't  let  him  get  me.  Take  him  away, 
Henry!  Where  are  you?  My  hands — slippery! 
Where  are  you — " 

Stunned,  feeling  for  her  in  the  darkness,  he  wanted 
to  take  her  shuddering  form  into  his  arms  and 
waken  her  out  of  this  horror,  but  with  each  groping 
move  of  his  her  hurtling  shrieks  came  faster,  and 
finally,  dragging  the  bedclothing  with  her,  she  was 
down  on  the  floor  at  the  bedside,  blobbering.  That 
is  the  only  word  for  it — blobbering. 

He  found  a  light,  and  by  this  time  there  were 
already  other  lights  flashing  up  in  the  startled  house 
hold.  When  he  saw  her  there  in  the  ague  of  a  huddle 
on  the  floor  beside  the  bed,  a  cold  sweat  broke  out 

197 


GUILTY 

over  him  so  that  he  could  almost  feel  each  little 
explosion  from  the  pores. 

4 'Why,  Emmy  —  Emmy  —  my  Emmy  —  my 
Emmy—" 

She  saw  him  now  and  knew  him,  and  tried  in  her 
poor  and  already  burningly  ashamed  way  to  force 
her  chattering  jaws  together. 

' '  Hen-ery — dream — bad — fish — Hen-ery — ' ' 

He  drew  her  up  to  the  side  of  the  bed,  covering 
her  shivering  knees  as  she  sat  there,  and  throwing  a 
blanket  across  her  shoulders.  Fortunately  he  was 
aware  that  the  soothing  note  in  his  voice  helped, 
and  so  he  sat  down  beside  her,  stroking  her  hand, 
stroking,  almost  as  if  to  hypnotize  her  into  quiet. 

" Henry,"  she  said,  closing  her  fingers  into  his 
wrists,  "I  must  have  dreamed — a  horrible  dream. 
Get  back  to  bed,  dear.  I — I  don't  know  what  ails 
me,  waking  up  like  that.  That — fish!  O  God! 
Henry,  hold  me,  hold  me." 

He  did,  lulling  her  with  a  thousand  repetitions  of 
his  limited  store  of  endearments,  and  he  could  feel 
the  jerk  of  sobs  in  her  breathing  subside  and  she 
seemed  almost  to  doze,  sitting  there  with  her  far 
hand  across  her  body  and  up  against  his  cheek. 

Then  came  knocks  at  the  door,  and  hurried 
explanations  through  the  slit  that  he  opened,  and 
Mrs.  Peopping's  eye  close  to  the  crack., 

"Everything  is  all  right.  .  .  .  Just  a  little  bad  dream 
the  missus  had.  ...  All  right  now.  ...  To  be  expected, 
of  course.  .  .  .  No,  nothing  anyone  can  do.  ...  Good 
night.  Sorry.  .  .  .  No,  thank  you.  Everything  is  all 
right." 

The  remainder  of  the  night  the  Jetts  kept  a 

198 


GUILTY 

small  light  burning,  after  a  while  Henry  dropping 
off  into  exhausted  and  heavy  sleep.  For  hours 
Mrs.  Jett  lay  staring  at  the  small  bud  of  light,  no 
larger  than  a  human  eye.  It  seemed  to  stare  back 
at  her,  warning,  Now  don't  you  go  dropping  off  to 
sleep  and  misbehave  again. 

And    holding    herself    tense    against    a    growing 
drowsiness,  she  didn't — for  fear — 


The  morning  broke  clear,  and  for  Mrs.  Jett  full  of 
small  reassurances.  It  was  good  to  hear  the  clatter 
of  milk  deliveries,  and  the  first  bar  of  sunshine  came 
in  through  the  hand-embroidered  window  curtains 
like  a  smile,  and  she  could  smile  back.  Later  she 
ventured  down  shamefacedly  for  the  two  cups  of 
coffee,  which  she  drank  bravely,  facing  the  inevitable 
potpourri  of  comment  from  this  one  and  that  one. 

"That  was  a  fine  scare  you  gave  us  last  night,  Mrs. 
Jett." 

"I  woke  up  stiff  with  fright.  Didn't  I,  Will? 
Gracious!  That  first  yell  was  a  curdler!" 

"Just  before  Jeanette  was  born  I  used  to  have 
bad  dreams,  too,  but  nothing  like  that.  My!" 

"My  mother  had  a  friend  whose  sister-in-law 
walked  in  her  sleep  right  out  of  a  third-story  window 
and  was  dashed  to — " 

"Shh-h-h!" 

"It's  natural,  Mrs.  Jett.    Don't  you  worry." 

She  really  tried  not  to,  and  after  some  subsequent 
and  private  reassurance  from  Mrs.  Peopping  and 
Mrs.  Keller,  went  for  her  hansom  ride  with  a  pleasant 
anticipation  of  the  Park  in  red  leaf,  Mrs.  Plush, 

199 


GUILTY 

in  a  brocade  cape  with  ball  fringe,  sitting  erect 
beside  her. 

One  day,  in  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Peopping,  Mrs. 
Jett  jumped  to  her  feet  with  a  violent  shaking  of  her 
right  hand,  as  if  to  dash  off  something  that  had 
crawled  across  its  back. 

' '  Ugh ! ' '  she  cried.  ' '  It  flopped  right  on  my  hand. 
A  minnow!  Ugh!" 

"A  what?"  cried  Mrs.  Peopping,  jumping  to  her 
feet  and  her  flesh  seeming  to  crawl  up. 

"A  minnow.  I  mean  a  bug — a  June  bug.  It  was 
a  bug,  Mrs.  Peopping." 

There  ensued  a  mock  search  for  the  thing,  the 
two  women,  on  all-fours,  peering  beneath  the 
chairs.  In  that  position  they  met  levelly,  eye  to 
eye.  Then  without  more  ado  rose,  brushing  their 
knees  and  reseating  themselves. 

"Maybe  if  you  would  read  books  you  would 
feel  better,"  said  Mrs.  Peopping,  scooping  up  a 
needleful  of  steel  beads.  "I  know  a  woman  who 
made  it  her  business  to  read  all  the  poetry  books  she 
could  lay  hands  on,  and  went  to  all  the  bandstand 
concerts  in  the  Park  the  whole  time,  and  now  her 
daughter  sings  in  the  choir  out  in  Saginaw,  Michigan." 

"I  know  some  believe  in  that,"  said  Mrs.  Jett, 
trying  to  force  a  smile  through  her  pallor.  "I  must 
try  it." 

But  the  infinitesimal  stitching  kept  her  so  busy. 


It  was  inevitable,  though,  that  in  time  Henry 
should  begin  to  shoulder  more  than  a  normal  share 
of  unease. 

200 


GUILTY 

One  evening  she  leaned  across  the  little  lamplit 
table  between  them  as  he  sat  reading  in  the  Persian- 
design  dressing  gown  and  said,  as  rapidly  as  her 
lips  could  form  the  dreadful  repetition,  "The  fish, 
the  fish,  the  fish,  the  fish."  And  then,  almost  impu 
dently  for  her,  disclaimed  having  said  it. 

He  urged  her  to  visit  her  doctor  and  she  would 
not,  and  so,  secretly,  he  did,  and  came  away  better 
satisfied,  and  with  directions  for  keeping  her  diverted, 
which  punctiliously  he  tried  to  observe. 

He  began  by  committing  sly  acts  of  discretion  on 
his  own  accord.  Was  careful  not  to  handle  the  fish. 
Changed  his  suit  now  before  coming  home,  behind 
a  screen  in  his  office,  and,  feeling  foolish,  went  out 
and  purchased  a  bottle  of  violet  eau  de  Cologne, 
which  he  rubbed  into  his  palms  and  for  some  inex 
plicable  reason  on  his  half-bald  spot. 

Of  course  that  was  futile,  because  the  indescribably 
and  faintly  rotten  smell  of  the  sea  came  through, 
none  the  less,  and  to  Henry  he  was  himself  heinous 
with  scent. 

One  Sunday  morning,  'as  was  his  wont,  Mr.  Jett 
climbed  into  his  dressing  gown  and  padded  down 
stairs  for  the  loan  of  little  Jeanette  Peopping,  with 
whom  he  returned,  the  delicious  nub  of  her  goldi 
locks  head  showing  just  above  the  blanket  which 
enveloped  her,  eyes  and  all. 

He  deposited  her  in  bed  beside  Mrs.  Jett,  the  little 
pink  feet  peeping  out  from  her  nightdress  and  her 
baby  teeth  showing  in  a  smile  that  Mr.  Jett  loved 
to  pinch  together  with  thumb  and  forefinger. 

"Cover  her  up  quick,  Em,  it's  chilly  this  morning." 

Quite  without  precedent,  Jeanette  puckered  up  to 
201 


GUILTY 

Cry,  holding  herself  rigidly  to  Mr.  Jett's  dressing 
gown. 

"Why,  Jeanette  baby,  don't  you  want  to  go  to 
Aunty  Em?" 

' '  No !  No !  No ! "  Trying  to  ingratiate  herself  back 
into  Mr.  Jett's  arms. 

"Baby,  you'll  take  cold.  Come  under  covers  with 
Aunty  Em?" 

"No!    No!    No!    Take  me  back." 

"Oh,  Jeanette,  that  isn't  nice!  What  ails  the 
child?  She's  always  so  eager  to  come  to  me.  Shame 
on  Jeanette!  Come,  baby,  to  Aunty  Em?" 

"No!  No!  No!  My  mamma  says  you're  crazy. 
Take  me  back — take  me." 

For  a  frozen  moment  Henry  regarded  his  wife 
above  the  glittering  fluff  of  little-girl  curls.  It 
seemed  to  him  he  could  almost  see  her  face  become 
smaller,  like  a  bit  of  ice  under  sun. 

"Naughty  little  Jeanette,"  he  said,  shouldering 
her  and  carrying  her  down  the  stairs;  "naughty 
little  girl." 

When  he  returned  his  wife  was  sitting  locked  in 
the  attitude  in  which  he  had  left  her. 

"Henry!"  she  whispered,  reaching  out  and  closing 
her  hand  over  his  so  that  the  nails  bit  in.  "Not 
that,  Henry !  Tell  me  not  that ! ' ' 

"Why,  Em,"  he  said,  sitting  down  and  trembling, 
"I'm  surprised  at  you,  listening  to  baby  talk! 
Why,  Em,  I'm  surprised  at  you!" 

She  leaned  over,  shaking  him  by  the  shoulder. 

"I  know.  They're  saying  it  about  me.  I'm  not 
that,  Henry.  I  swear  I'm  not  that!  Always  protect 
me  against  their  saying  that,  Henry.  Not  crazy — 

202 


GUILTY 

not  that!  It's  natural  for  me  to  feel  queer  at  times 
— now.  Every  woman  in  this  house  who  says — 
that — about  me  has  had  her  nervous  feelings.  It's 
not  quite  so  easy  for  me,  as  if  I  were  a  bit  younger. 
That's  all.  The  doctor  said  that.  But  nothing  to 
worry  about.  Mrs.  Peopping  had  Jeanette —  Oh, 
Henry  promise  me  you'll  always  protect  me  against 
their  saying  that!  I'm  not  that — I  swear  to  you, 
Henry— not  that!" 

"I  know  you're  not,  Emmy.  It's  too  horrible  and 
too  ridiculous  to  talk  about.  Pshaw — pshaw!" 

"You  do  know  I'm  not,  don't  you?  Tell  me 
again  you  do  know." 

"I  do.    Do." 

"And  you'll  always  protect  me  against  anyone 
saying  it?  They'll  believe  you,  Henry,  not  me. 
Promise  me  to  protect  me  against  them,  Henry. 
Promise  to  protect  me  against  our  little  Ann 
Elizabeth  ever  thinking  that  of — of  her  mother." 

"Why,  Emmy!"  he  said.  "Why,  Emmy!  I  just 
promise  a  thousand  times — "  and  could  not  go  on, 
working  his  mouth  rather  foolishly  as  if  he  had  not 
teeth  and  were  rubbing  empty  gums  together. 

But  through  her  hot  gaze  of  tears  she  saw  and 
understood  and,  satisfied,  rubbed  her  cheek  against 
his  arm. 

The  rest  is  cataclysmic. 

Returning  home  one  evening  in  a  nice  glow  from 
a  January  out-of-doors,  his  mustache  glistening  with 
little  frozen  drops  and  his  hands  (he  never  wore 
gloves)  unbending  of  cold,  Mrs.  Jett  rose  at  her 
husband's  entrance  from  her  low  chair  beside  the 
lamp. 
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GUILTY 

"Well,  well!"  he  said,  exhaling  heartily,  the 
scent  of  violet  denying  the  pungency  of  fish  and  the 
pungency  of  fish  denying  the  scent  of  violet.  ' '  How's 
the  busy  bee  this  evening?" 

For  answer  Mrs.  Jett  met  him  with  the  crescendo 
yell  of  a  gale  sweeping  around  a  chimney. 

"Ya-a-ah!  Keep  out— you!  Fish!  Fish!"  she 
cried,  springing  toward  him;  and  in  the  struggle 
that  ensued  the  tubing  wrenched  off  the  gas  lamp 
and  plunged  them  into  darkness.  "Fish!  Ill  fix 
you!  Ya-a-ah!" 

"Emmy!    For  God's  sake,  it's  Henry!    Em!" 

"Ya-a-ah!    I'll  fix  you!    Fish!    Fish!" 


Two  days  later  Ann  Elizabeth  was  born,  beautiful, 
but  premature  by  two  weeks. 

Emma  Jett  died  holding  her  tight  against  her  newly 
rich  breasts,  for  a  few  of  the  most  precious  and  most 
fleeting  moments  of  her  life. 

All  her  absurd  fears  washed  away,  her  free  hand 
could  lie  without  spasm  in  Henry's,  and  it  was  as  if 
she  found  in  her  last  words  a  secret  euphony  that 
delighted  her. 

"Ann-Elizabeth.  Sweet-beautiful.  Ann-Elizabeth. 
Sweet-beautiful. ' ' 

Later  in  his  bewildered  and  almost  ludicrous 
widowerhood  tears  would  sometimes  galumph  down 
on  his  daughter's  face  as  Henry  rocked  her  of  eve 
nings  and  Sunday  mornings. 

"Sweet-beautiful,"  came  so  absurdly  from  under 
his  swiftly  graying  mustache,  but  often,  when  sure  he 
was  quite  alone,  he  would  say  it  over  and  over  again. 

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GUILTY 

' '  Sweet-beautiful.     Ann -Elizabeth.     Sweet -beau 
tiful.    Ann-Elizabeth.'' 


Of  course  the  years  puttied  in  and  healed  and 
softened,  until  for  Henry  almost  a  Turner  haze  hung 
between  him  and  some  of  the  stark  facts  of  Emma 
Jett's  death,  turping  out  horror,  which  is  always  the 
first  to  fade  from  memory,  and  leaving  a  dear  sepia 
outline  of  the  woman  who  had  been  his. 

At  seventeen,  Ann  Elizabeth  was  the  sun,  the 
sky,  the  west  wind,  and  the  shimmer  of  spring — 
all  gone  into  the  making  of  her  a  rosebud  off  the 
stock  of  his  being. 

His  way  of  putting  it  was,  "You're  my  all,  Annie, 
closer  to  me  than  I  am  to  myself." 

She  hated  the  voweling  of  her  name,  and  because 
she  was  so  nimble  with  youth  could  dance  away 
from  these  moods  of  his  rather  than  plumb  them. 

"I  won't  be  'Annie.'  Please,  daddy,  I'm  your 
Ann  Elizabeth.'* 

"Ann  Elizabeth,  then.  My  Ann  Elizabeth,"  an 
inner  rhythm  in  him  echoing:  Sweet-Beautiful. 
Sweet-Beautiful. 

There  was  actually  something  of  the  lark  about 
her.  She  awoke  with  a  song,  sometimes  kneeling  up 
in  bed,  with  her  pretty  brown  hair  tousling  down 
over  her  shoulders  and  chirruping  softly  to  herself 
into  the  little  bird's-eye-maple  dressing-table  mirror, 
before  she  flung  her  feet  over  the  side  of  the  bed. 

And  then,  innate  little  housekeeper  that  she  was, 
it  was  to  the  preparing  of  breakfast  with  a  song, 
her  early  morning  full  of  antics.  Tiptoeing  in  to 


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awaken  her  father  to  the  tickle  of  a  broom  straw. 
Spreading  his  breakfast  piping  hot,  and  then  con 
cealing  herself  behind  a  screen,  that  he  might  marvel 
at  the  magic  of  it.  And  once  she  put  salt  in  his  coffee, 
a  fresh  cup  concealed  behind  the  toast  rack,  and  knee 
to  knee  they  rocked  in  merriment  at  his  grimace. 

She  loved  thus  to  tease  him,  probably  because  he 
was  so  stolid  that  each  new  adventure  came  to  him 
with  something  of  a  shock.  He  was  forever  being 
taken  unawares,  as  if  he  could  never  become  entirely 
accustomed  to  the  wonder  of  her,  and  that  delighted 
her.  Even  the  obviousness  of  his  slippers  stuffed 
out  with  carrots  could  catch  him  napping.  To  her 
dance  of  glee  behind  him,  he  kept  poking  and  poking 
to  get  into  them,  only  the  peck  of  her  kiss  upon  his 
neck  finally  initiating  him  into  the  absurdity. 

There  was  a  little  apartment  of  five  rooms,  twenty 
minutes  removed  by  Subway  from  the  fish  store; 
her  bedroom,  all  pink  and  yellow  maple;  his;  a 
kitchen,  parlor,  and  dining  room  worked  out  happily 
in  white-muslin  curtains,  spindle-legged  parlor  chairs, 
Henry's  newfangled  chifferobe  and  bed  with  a  fine 
depth  of  mattress,  and  a  kitchen  with  eight  shining 
pots  above  the  sink  and  a  border  of  geese,  cut  out 
to  the  snip  of  Ann's  own  scissors,  waddling  across 
the  wall. 

It  was  two  and  a  half  years  since  Mrs.  Plush  had 
died,  and  the  boarders,  as  if  spilled  from  an  ark 
on  rough  seas,  had  struck  out  for  diverse  shores. 
The  marvel  to  them  now  was  that  they  had  delayed 
so  long. 

' '  A  home  of  our  own,  Ann.    Pretty  sweet,  isn't  it  ? " 

"Oh,  daddy,  it  is!" 

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GUILTY 

"You  mustn't  overdo,  though,  baby.  Sometimes 
we're  not  so  strong  as  we  think  we  are.  A  little 
hired  girl  would  be  best."  The  fish  business  had 
more  than  held  its  own. 

"  But  I  love  doing  it  alone,  dad.  It — it's  the  next 
best  thing  to  a  home  of — my  own." 

He  looked  startled  into  her  dreaming  eyes. 

1 '  Your  own  ?    Why,  Annie,  isn't  this — your  own  ? ' ' 

She  laid  fingers  against  his  eyes  so  that  he  could 
not  see  the  pinkiness  of  her. 

"You  know  what  I  mean,  daddy — my — very — 
own." 

At  that  timid  phrasing  of  hers  Henry  felt  that  his 
heart  was  actually  strangling,  as  if  some  one  were 
holding  it  back  on  its  systolic  swing,  like  a  caught 
pendulum. 

"Why,  Annie,"  he  said,  "I  never  thought—" 

But  inevitably  and  of  course  it  had  happened. 

The  young  man's  name  was  Willis — Fred  E. 
Willis — already  credit  man  in  a  large  wholesale 
grocery  firm  and  two  feet  well  on  the  road  to  advance 
ment.  A  square-faced,  clean-faced  fellow,  with  a 
clean  love  of  life  and  of  Ann  Elizabeth  in  his  heart. 

Henry  liked  him. 

Ann  Elizabeth  loved  him. 

And  yet,  what  must  have  been  a  long-smoldering 
flame  of  fear  shot  up  through  the  very  core  of  Henry's 
being,  excoriating. 

"Why,  Ann  Elizabeth,"  he  kept  repeating,  in  his 
slow  and  always  inarticulate  manner,  "I —  You — 
Mine —  I  just  never  thought." 

She  wound  the  softest  of  arms  about  his  neck. 

"I  know,  daddy-darlums,  and  I'll  never  leave  you. 
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GUILTY 

Never.  Fred  has  promised  we  will  always  be 
together.  We'll  live  right  here  with  you,  or  you 
with  us." 

"Annie,"  he  cried,  "you  mustn't  ever — marry. 
I  mean,  leave  daddy — that  way — anyway.  You 
hear  me?  You're  daddy's  own.  Just  his  by  him 
self.  Nobody  is  good  enough  for  my  girl." 

"But,  daddy,"  clouding  up  for  tears,  "I  thought 
you  liked  Fred  so  much!" 

"I  do,  but  it's  you  I'm  talking  about.  Nobody 
can  have  you." 

"But  I  love  him,  daddy.  This  is  terrible.  I 
love  him." 

"Oh,  Ann,  Ann!  daddy  hasn't  done  right,  perhaps, 
but  he  meant  well.  There  are  reasons  why  he  wants 
to  keep  his  little  girl  with  him  always — alone — his." 

"But,  daddy  dear,  I  promise  you  we'll  never  let 
you  be  lonely.  Why,  I  couldn't  stand  leaving  you 
any  more  than  you  could — " 

"Not  those  reasons  alone,  Ann." 

"Then  what?" 

"You're  so  young,"  he  tried  to  procrastinate. 

"I'll  be  eighteen.     A  woman." 

All  his  faculties  were  cornered. 

"You're— so—    Oh,  I  don't  know—    I—" 

"You  haven't  any  reasons,  dad,  except  dear  silly 
ones.  You  can't  keep  me  a  little  girl  all  the  time, 
dear.  I  love  Fred.  It's  all  planned.  Don't  ruin  my 
life,  daddy — don't  ruin  my  life." 

She  was  lovely  in  her  tears  and  surprisingly  reso 
lute  in  her  mind,  and  he  was  more  helpless  than 
ever  with  her. 

"Ann — you're  not  strong." 
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GUILTY 

"Strong!"  she  cried,  flinging  back  her  curls  and 
out  her  chest.  "That  is  a  fine  excuse.  I'm  stronger 
than  most.  All  youngsters  have  measles  and  scarlet 
fever  and  Fred  says  his  sister  Lucile  out  in  Des 
Moines  had  St.  Vitus'  dance  when  she  was  eleven, 
just  like  I  did.  I'm  stronger  than  you  are,  dad.  I 
didn't  get  the  flu  and  you  did." 

"You're  nervous,  Annie.  That's  why  I  want 
always  to  keep  you  at  home — quiet — with  me." 

She  sat  back,  her  pretty  eyes  troubled-up  lakes. 

"You  mean  the  dreams  and  the  scared  feeling,  once 
in  a  while,  that  I  can't  swallow.  That's  nothing. 
I  know  now  why  I  was  so  frightened  in  my  sleep 
the  other  night.  I  told  Fred,  and  he  said  it  was  the 
peach  sundae  on  top  of  the  crazy  old  movie  we  saw 
that  evening.  Why,  Jeanette  Peopping  had  to  take 
a  rest  cure  the  year  before  she  was  married.  Girls 
are  always  more  nervous  than  fellows.  Daddy — 
you — you  frighten  me  when  you  look  at  me  like 
that!  I  don't  know  what  you  mean!  What-do-you- 
mean?" 

He  was  helpless  and  at  bay  and  took  her  in  his 
arms  and  kissed  her  hair. 

"I  guess  your  old  daddy  is  a  jealous  pig  and  can't 
bear  to  share  his  girl  with  anyone.  Can't  bear  to — 
to  give  her  up." 

"You  won't  be  giving  up,  daddums.  I  couldn't 
stand  that,  either.  It  will  be  three  of  us  then. 
You'll  see.  Look  up  and  smile  at  your  Ann  Eliza 
beth.  Smile,  now,  smile." 

And  of  course  he  did. 

It  was  typical  of  her  that  she  should  be  the 
busiest  of  brides-to-be,  her  complete  little  trousseau, 

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GUILTY 

every  piece  down  to  the  dishcloths,  monogrammed 
by  her— A.  E.  W. 

Skillful  with  her  needle  and  thrifty  in  her  pur 
chases,  the  outfit  when  completed  might  have 
represented  twice  the  outlay  that  Henry  expended 
on  it.  Then  there  were  " showers," — linen,  stocking, 
and  even  a  tin  one;  gifts  from  her  girl  friends — cup, 
face,  bath  and  guest  towels;  all  the  tremendous 
trifles  and  addenda  that  go  to  gladden  the  chattel- 
loving  heart  of  a  woman.  A  little  secret  society  of 
her  erstwhile  school  friends  presented  her  with  a 
luncheon  set;  the  Keller  twins  with  a  silver  gravy 
boat;  and  Jeanette  Peopping  Truman,  who  occupied 
an  apartment  in  the  same  building,  spent  as  many  as 
three  afternoons  a  week  with  her,  helping  to  piece 
out  a  really  lovely  tulip-design  quilt  of  pink  and 
wtiite  sateen. 

"Jeanette,"  said  Ann  Elizabeth,  one  afternoon  as 
the  two  of  them  sat  in  a  frothy  litter  of  the  pink  and 
white  scraps,  "how  did  you  feel  that  time  when  you 
had  the  nerv — the  breakdown?" 

Jeanette,  pretty  after  a  high-cheek-boned  fashion 
and  her  still  bright  hair  worn  coronet  fashion  about 
her  head,  bit  off  a  thread  with  sharp  white  teeth, 
only  too  eager  to  reminisce  her  ills. 

"I  was  just  about  gone,  that's  what  I  was.  Let 
anybody  so  much  as  look  at  me  twice  and,  pop!  I'd 
want  to  cry  about  it." 

"And?" 

"For  six  weeks  I  didn't  even  have  enough  interest 
to  ask  after  Truman,  who  was  courting  me  then. 
Oh,  it  was  no  fun,  I  can  tell  you,  that  nervous  break 
down  of  mine!" 

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GUILTY 

"What— else?" 

"Isn't  that  enough?" 

"Did  it — was  it — was  it  ever  hard  to  swallow, 
Jeanette?" 

"To  swallow?" 

"Yes.  I  mean — did  you  ever  dream  or — think — 
or  feel  so  frightened  you  couldn't  swallow?" 

' '  I  felt  lots  of  ways,  but  that  wasn't  one  of  them. 
Swallow!  Who  ever  heard  of  not  swallowing?" 

"But  didn't  you  ever  dream,  Jeanette — terrible 
things — such  terrible  things — and  get  to  thinking 
and  couldn't  stop  yourself?  Silly,  ghostly — things." 

Jeanette  put  down  her  sewing. 

"Ann,  are  you  quizzing  me  about — your  mother?" 

"My  mother?  Why  my  mother?  Jeanette,  what 
do  you  mean  ?  Why  do  you  ask  me  a  thing  like  that  ? 
What  has  my  mother  got  to  do  with  it?  Jeanette!" 

Conscious  that  she  had  erred,  Jeanette  veered 
carefully  back. 

"Why,  nothing,  only  I  remember  mamma  telling 
me  when  I  was  just  a  kiddie  how  your  mamma  used 
to — to  imagine  all  sorts  of  things  just  to  pass  the 
time  away  while  she  embroidered  the  loveliest 
pieces.  You're  like  her,  mamma  used  to  say — a 
handy  little  body.  Poor  mamma,  to  think  she  had 
to  be  taken  before  Truman,  junior,  was  born! 
Ah  me!" 

That  evening,  before  Fred  came  for  his  two  hours 
with  her  in  the  little  parlor,  Ann,  rid  of  her  checked 
apron  and  her  crisp  pink  frock  saved  from  the 
grease  of  frying  sparks,  flew  in  from  a  ring  at  the 
doorbell  with  a  good-sized  special-delivery  box  from 
a  silversmith,  untying  it  with  eager,  fumbling 


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fingers,   her  father  laying  aside  his  newspaper  to 
venture  three  guesses  as  to  its  contents. 

"Another  one  of  those  syrup  pitchers." 

"Oh  dear!"— plucking  the  twine— "I  hope  not!" 

' l  Some  more  nut  picks. ' ' 

"Daddy,  stop  calamity  howling.  Here's  the  card. 
Des  Moines,  Iowa.  'From  Lucile  Willis,  with  love 
to  her  new  sister.'  Isn't  that  the  sweetest!  It's 
something  with  a  pearl  handle." 

' '  I  know.    Another  one  of  those  pie-spade  things. ' ' 

"Wrong!    Wrong!    It's  two  pieces.    Oh!" 

It  was  a  fish  set  of  silver  and  mother-of-pearl. 
A  large-bowled  spoon  and  a  sort  of  Neptune's  fork, 
set  up  in  a  white-sateen  bed. 

"Say  now,  that  is  neat,"  said  Henry,  appraising 
each  piece  with  a  show  of  critical  appreciation  not 
really  his.  All  this  spread  of  the  gewgaws  of  ap 
proaching  nuptials  seemed  meaningless  to  him; 
bored  him.  Butter  knives.  Berry  spoons.  An 
embarrassment  of  nut  picks  and  silver  pitchers.  A 
sliver  of  silver  paper  cutter  with  a  hilt  and  a  dog's- 
head  handle.  And  now,  for  Fred's  delectation  this 
evening,  the  newly  added  fish  set,  so  appropriately 
inscribed  from  his  sister. 

Tilting  it  against  the  lamp  in  the  place  of  honor, 
Ann  Elizabeth  turned  away  suddenly,  looking  up  at 
her  father  in  a  sudden  dumb  panic  of  which  he  knew 
nothing,  her  two  hands  at  her  fair,  bare  throat.  It 
was  so  hard  again  to  swallow.  Impossible. 

But  finally,  as  was  always  the  case,  she  did  swal 
low,  with  a  great  surge  of  relief.  A  little  later,  seated 
on  her  father's  knee  and  plucking  at  his  tie  in  a 
futile  fashion  that  he  loved,  she  asked  him: 

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GUILTY 

' '  Daddy — about  mother — " 

They  seldom  talked  of  her,  but  always  during 
these  rare  moments  a  beautiful  mood  shaped  itself 
between  them.  It  was  as  if  the  mere  breath  of  his 
daughter's  sweetly  lipped  use  of  "mother"  swayed 
the  bitter-sweet  memory  of  the  woman  he  carried 
so  faithfully  in  the  cradle  of  his  heart. 

"Yes,  baby— about  mother?" 

"Daddy" — still  fingering  at  the  tie — "was  mother 
— was  everything  all  right  with  her  up — to  the  very — 
end?  I  mean — no  nerv — no  pain?  Just  all  of  a 
sudden  the  end — quietly.  Or  have  you  told  me  that 
just  to — spare  me?" 

She  could  feel  him  stiffen,  but  when  his  voice  came 
it  was  even. 

"Why,  Ann,  what  a — question!  Haven't  I  told 
you  so  often  how  mother  just  peacefully  passed  on, 
holding  a  little  pink  you." 

Sweet-Beautiful — his  heart  was  tolling  through  a 
sense  of  panic — Sweet-Beautiful. 

"I  know,  daddy,  but  before — wasn't  there  any 
nerv — any  sickness?" 

"No,"  he  said,  rather  harshly  for  him.  "No. 
No.  What  put  such  ideas  into  your  head?" 

You  see,  he  was  shielding  Emma  way  back  there, 
and  a  typhoon  of  her  words  was  raging  through  his 
head: 

"Oh,  Henry,  protect  me  against  anyone  ever 
saying — that.  Promise  me." 

And  now,  with  no  sense  of  his  terrible  ruthlessness, 
he  was  protecting  her  with  her  own  daughter. 

"Then,  daddy,  just  one  more  thing,"  and  her 
underlip  caught  while  she  waited  for  answer.  ' '  There 

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GUILTY 

is  no  other  reason  except  your  own  dear  silly  one  of 
loneliness — why  you  keep  wanting  me  to  put  off  my 
marriage?" 

"No,  baby,"  he  said,  finally,  his  words  with  no 
more  depth  than  if  his  body  were  a  hollow  gourd. 
"What  else  could  there  be?" 

Immediately,  and  with  all  the  resilience  of  youth, 
she  was  her  happy  self  again,  kissing  him  through  his 
mustache  and  on  his  now  frankly  bald  head,  which 
gave  off  the  incongruous  odor  of  violet  eau  de  Cologne. 

"Old  dude  daddy!"  she  cried,  and  wanted  to 
kiss  his  hands,  which  he  held  suddenly  very  still  and 
far  from  her  reach. 

Then  the  bell  rang  again  and  Fred  Willis  arrived. 
All  the  evening,  long  after  Henry  lay  on  his  deep- 
mattressed  bed,  staring,  the  little  apartment  trilled 
to  her  laughter  and  the  basso  of  Fred's. 


A  few  weeks  later  there  occurred  a  strike  of  the 
delivery  men  and  truck  drivers  of  the  city,  and 
Henry,  especially  hard  hit  because  of  the  perishable 
nature  of  his  product,  worked  early  and  late,  often 
times  loading  the  wagons  himself  and  riding  along 
side  of  the  precariously  driving  "scab." 

Frequently  he  was  as  much  as  an  hour  or  two  late 
to  dinner,  and  upon  one  or  two  occasions  had  tip 
toed  out  of  the  house  before  the  usual  hour  when 
Ann  opened  her  eyes  to  the  consciousness  of  his 
breakfast  to  be  prepared. 

They  were  trying  days,  the  scheme  of  his  universe 
broken  into,  and  Henry  thrived  on  routine. 

The  third  week  of  the  strike  there  were  street 
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GUILTY 

riots,  some  of  them  directly  in  front  of  the  fish  store, 
and  Henry  came  home  after  a  day  of  the  unaccus 
tomed  labor  of  loading  and  unloading  hampers  of 
fish,  really  quite  shaken. 

When  he  arrived  Ann  Elizabeth  was  cutting 
around  the  scalloped  edge  of  a  doily  with  embroidery 
scissors,  the  litter  of  cut  glass  and  silver  things  out 
on  the  table  and  throwing  up  quite  a  brilliance  under 
the  electric  lamp,  and  from  the  kitchen  the  slow 
sizzle  of  waiting  chops. 

"Whew!"  he  said,  as  he  entered,  both  from  the 
whiff  he  emanated  as  he  shook  out  of  his  overcoat, 
and  from  a  great  sense  of  his  weariness.  Loading 
the  hampers,  you  understand.  "Whew!" 

Ann  Elizabeth  started  violently,  first  at  the  whiff 
which  preceded  him  and  at  his  approach  into  the 
room;  then  sat  forward,  her  hand  closing  into  the 
arm  of  the  chair,  body  thrust  forward  and  her  eyes 
widening  like  two  flowers  opening. 

Then  she  rose  slowly  and  slyly,  and  edged  behind 
the  table,  her  two  hands  up  about  her  throat. 

"Don't  you  come  in  here,"  she  said,  lowly  and 
evenly.  "I  know  you,  but  I'm  not  afraid.  I'm 
only  afraid  of  you  at  night,  but  not  by  light.  You 
let  me  swallow,  you  hear!  Get  out!  Get  out!" 

Rooted,  Henry  stood. 

"Why,  Annie!"  he  said  in  the  soothing  voice 
from  out  of  his  long  ago,  "Annie — it's  daddy!" 

"No,  you  don't,"  she  cried,  springing  back  as  he 
took  the  step  forward.  "My  daddy  '11  kill  you  if  he 
finds  you  here.  He'll  slit  you  up  from  your  tail 
right  up  to  your  gill.  He  knows  how.  I'm  going 
to  tell  him  and  Fred  on  you.  You  won't  let  me 

215 


GUILTY 

swallow.  You're  slippery.  I  can't  stand  it.  Don't 
you  come  near  me !  Don't ! ' ' 

"  Annie!"  he  cried.  "Good  God!  Annie,  it's  daddy 
who  loves  you!"  Poor  Henry,  her  voice  was  still 
under  a  whisper  and  in  his  agony  he  committed  the 
error  of  rushing  at  her.  "Annie,  it's  daddy!  See, 
your  own  dear  daddy!" 

But  she  was  too  quick.  Her  head  thrown  back  so 
that  the  neck  muscles  strained  out  like  an  outraged 
deer's  cornered  in  the  hunt  and  her  eyes  rolled  up, 
Ann  felt  for  and  grasped  the  paper  knife  off  the 
trinket-littered  table. 

"Don't  you  touch  me — slit  you  up  from  tail  to 
your  gills." 

"Annie,  it's  daddy!  Papa!  For  God's  sake  look 
at  daddy — Ann!  God!"  And  caught  her  wrist  in 
the  very  act  of  its  plumb-line  rush  for  his  heart. 

He  was  sweating  in  his  struggle  with  her,  and  most 
of  all  her  strength  appalled  him,  she  was  so  little 
for  her  terrible  unaccountable  power. 

"Don't  touch  me!  You  can't!  You  haven't  any 
arms!  Horrible  gills!" 

She  was  talking  as  she  struggled,  still  under  the 
hoarse  and  frantic  whisper,  but  her  breath  coming  in 
long  soughs.  "Slit-you-up-from-tail.  Slit — you — up 
— from — tail — to — gills. ' ' 

"Annie!  Annie!"  still  obsessed  by  his  anguished 
desire  to  reassure  her  with  the  normality  of  his  touch. 
"See,  Annie,  it's  daddy.  Ann  Elizabeth's  daddy." 
With  a  flash  her  arm  and  the  glint  of  the  paper  cutter 
eluded  him  again  and  again,  but  finally  he  caught 
her  by  the  waist,  struggling,  in  his  dreadful  mistake, 
to  calm  her  down  into  the  chair  again, 


GUILTY 

' ' Now  I've  got  you,  darling.    Now — sit — down — ' ' 

"No,  you  haven't,"  she  said,  a  sort  of  wild  joy 
coming  out  in  her  whisper,  and  cunningly  twisting 
the  upper  half  of  her  body  back  from  his,  the  hand 
still  held  high.  "You'll  never  get  me — you  fish!" 

And  plunged  with  her  high  hand  in  a  straight  line 
down  into  her  throat. 

It  was  only  when  the  coroner  withdrew  the  sliver 
of  paper  knife  from  its  whiteness,  that,  coagulated, 
the  dead  and  waiting  blood  began  to  ooze. 


"Do  you,"  intoned  the  judge  for  the  third  and 
slightly  more  impatient  time,  "plead  guilty  or  not 
guilty  to  the  charge  of  murder  against  you?" 

This  time  the  lips  of  the  prisoner's  wound  of  a 
mouth  moved  stiffly  together: 

"Guilty." 


ROULETTE 


ROULETTE 


SNOW  in  the  village  of  Vodna  can  have  the  quality 
of  hot  white  plush  of  enormous  nap,  so  dryly  thick 
it  packs  into  the  angles  where  fences  cross,  sealing  up 
the  windward  sides  of  houses,  rippling  in  great  seas 
across  open  places,  flaming  in  brilliancy  against  the 
boles  of  ever  so  occasional  trees,  and  tucking  in  the 
houses  up  to  the  sills  and  down  over  the  eaves. 

Out  in  the  wide  places  it  is  like  a  smile  on  a  dead 
face,  this  snow  hush,  grateful  that  peace  can  be  so 
utter.  It  is  the  silence  of  a  broody  God,  and  out  of 
that  frozen  pause,  in  a  house  tucked  up  to  the  sills 
and  down  to  the  eaves,  Sara  Turkletaub  was  pre 
maturely  taken  with  the  pangs  of  childbirth,  and  in 
the  thin  dawn,  without  even  benefit  of  midwife, 
twin  sons  were  born. 

Sturdy  sons,  with  something  even  in  their  first 
crescendo  wails  that  bespoke  the  good  heritage  of  a 
father's  love-of-life  and  a  mother's  life-of-love. 

No  Sicilian  sunrise  was  ever  more  glossy  with  the 
patina  of  hope  than  the  iced  one  that  crept  in  for  a 
look  at  the  wide-faced,  high-cheek-boned  beauty  of 
Sara  Turkletaub  as  she  lay  with  her  sons  to 
the  miracle  of  her  full  breasts,  her  hair  still 
rumpled  with  the  agony  of  deliverance.  So  sweetly 

82  X 


ROULETTE 

moist  her  eyes  that  Mosher  Turkletaub,  his  own 
brow  damp  from  sweat  of  her  writhings,  was  full  of 
heartbeat,  even  to  his  temples. 

Long  before  moontime,  as  if  by  magic  of  the 
brittle  air,  the  tidings  had  spread  through  the  vil 
lage,  and  that  night,  until  the  hand-hewn  rafters 
rang,  the  house  of  Turkletaub  heralded  with  two 
fold  and  world-old  fervor  the  advent  of  the  man- 
child.  And  through  it  all — the  steaming  warmth, 
the  laughter  through  bushy  beards,  the  ministering 
of  women  wise  and  foolish  with  the  memory  of  their 
own  pangs,  the  shouts  of  vodka-stirred  men,  sheepish 
that  they,  too,  were  part  custodians  of  the  miracle 
of  life — through  it  all  Sara  Turkletaub  lay  back 
against  her  coarse  bed,  so  rich — so  rich  that  the 
coves  of  her  arms  trembled  each  of  its  burden  and 
held  tighter  for  fear  somehow  God  might  repent  of 
his  prodigality. 

That  year  the  soil  came  out  from  under  the  snow 
rich  and  malmy  to  the  plow,  and  Mosher  started 
heavy  with  his  peddler's  pack  and  returned  light.  It 
was  no  trick  now  for  Sara  to  tie  her  sons  to  an  iron 
ring  in  the  door  jamb  and,  her  strong  legs  straining 
and  her  sweat  willing,  undertake  household  chores  of 
water  lugging,  furniture  heaving,  marketing  with 
baskets  that  strained  her  arms  from  the  sockets  as 
she  carted  them  from  the  open  square  to  their  house 
on  the  outskirts,  her  massive  silhouette  moving  as 
solemnly  as  a  caravan  against  the  sky  line. 

Rich  months  these  were  and  easy  to  bear  be 
cause  they  were  backed  by  a  dream  that  each  day, 
however  relentless  in  its  toil,  brought  closer  to  reality. 

"America!" 

222 


ROULETTE 

The  long  evenings  full  of  the  smell  of  tallow; 
maps  that  curled  under  the  ringers ;  the  well-thumbed 
letters  from  Aaron  Turkletaub,  older  brother  to 
Mosher  and  already  a  successful  pieceworker  on 
skirts  in  Brooklyn.  The  picture  postcards  from 
him  of  the  Statue  of  Liberty !  Of  the  three  of  them, 
Aaron,  Gussie,  his  wife,  and  little  Leo,  with  donkey 
bodies  sporting  down  a  beach  labeled  " Coney."  A 
horrific  tintype  of  little  Leo  in  tiny  velveteen  knicker 
bockers  that  fastened  with  large,  ruble-sized,  mother- 
of-pearl  buttons  up  to  an  embroidered  sailor  blouse. 

It  was  those  mother-of-pearl  buttons  that  captured 
Sara's  imagination  so  that  she  loved  and  wept  over 
the  tintype  until  little  Leo  quite  disappeared  under 
the  rust  of  her  tears.  Long  after  young  Mosher, 
who  loved  his  Talmud,  had  retired  to  sway  over  it, 
Sara  could  yearn  at  this  tintype. 

Her  sons  in  little  knickerbockers  that  fastened  to 
the  waistband  with  large  pearl  buttons! 

Her  black-eyed  Nikolai  with  the  strong  black 
hair  and  the  virile  little  profile  that  hooked  against 
the  pillow  as  he  slept. 

Her  red-headed  Schmulka  with  the  tight  curls, 
golden  eyes,  and  even  more  thrusting  profile.  So 
different  of  feature  her  twins  and  yet  so  tempera 
mentally  of  a  key.  Flaming  to  the  same  childish 
passions,  often  too  bitter,  she  thought,  and,  trembling 
with  an  unnamed  fear,  would  tear  them  apart. 

Full  of  the  cruelties  and  the  horrible  torture  com 
plex  of  the  young  male,  they  had  once  burned  a  cat 
alive,  and  the  passion  of  their  father  and  their  cries 
under  flaying  had  beat  about  in  her  brain  for  weeks 
after.  Jealousies,  each  of  the  other,  burned  fiercely, 

223 


ROULETTE 

and,  aged  three,  they  scratched  blood  from  one  an 
other  over  the  favor  of  the  shoemaker's  tot  of  a  girl. 
And  once,  to  her  soul-sickness,  Nikolai,  the  black 
one,  had  found  out  the  vodka  and  drunk  of  it  until 
she  discovered  him  in  a  little  stupor  beside  the 
cupboard. 

Yet — and  Sara  would  recount  with  her  eyes  full 
of  more  tears  than  they  could  hold  the  often-told 
tale  of  how  Schmulka,  who  could  bear  no  injustice, 
championed  the  cause  of  little  Mottke,  the  butcher's 
son,  against  the  onslaught  of  his  drunken  father, 
beating  back  the  lumbering  attack  with  small  fists 
tight  with  rage;  of  little  Nikolai,  who  fell  down  the 
jagged  wall  of  a  quarry  and  endured  a  broken  arm 
for  the  six  hours  until  his  father  came  home  rather 
than  burden  his  mother  with  what  he  knew  would 
be  the  agony  of  his  pain. 

Red  and  black  were  Sara's  sons  in  pigment.  But 
by  the  time  they  were  four,  almost  identical  in 
passion,  inflammable  both  to  the  same  angers,  the 
impulsive  and  the  judiciary  cunningly  distributed 
in  them. 

And  so,  to  the  solemn  and  Talmud  teachings  of 
Mosher  and  the  wide-bosomed  love  of  this  mother 
who  lavishly  nurtured  them,  these  sons,  so  identically 
pitched,  grew  steady  of  limb,  with  all  the  thigh- 
pulling  power  of  their  parents,  the  calves  of  their 
little  legs  already  tight  as  fists.  And  from  the  book 
keeping  one  snow-smelling  night,  to  the  drip-drip 
of  tallow,  there  came  the  decisive  moment  when 
America  looked  exactly  four  months  off! 

Then  one  starlit  hour  before  dawn  the  pogrom 
broke.  Redly,  from  the  very  start,  because  from 

224 


ROULETTE 

the  first  bang  of  a  bayonet  upon  a  door  blood  began 
to  flow  and  smell. 

There  had  been  rumors.  For  days  old  Genendel, 
the  ragpicker,  had  prophetically  been  showing 
about  the  village  the  rising  knobs  of  his  knotting 
rheumatic  knuckles,  ill  omen  of  storm  or  havoc. 
A  star  had  shot  down  one  night,  as  white  and  sar 
donic  as  a  Cossack's  grin  and  almost  with  a  hiss 
behind  it.  Mosher,  returning  from  a  peddling  tour 
to  a  neighboring  village,  had  worn  a  furrow  between 
his  eyes.  Headache,  he  called  it.  Somehow  Sara 
vaguely  sensed  it  to  be  the  ache  of  a  fear. 

One  night  there  was  a  furious  pink  tint  on  the 
distant  horizon,  and  borne  on  miles  of  the  stiffly 
thin  air  came  the  pungency  of  burning  wood  and 
flesh  across  the  snowlight.  Flesh!  The  red  sky  lay 
off  in  the  direction  of  Kishinef.  What  was  it?  The 
straw  roof  of  a  burning  barn?  The  precious  flesh  of 
an  ox?  What?  Reb  Baruch,  with  a  married  daugh 
ter  and  eleven  children  in  Kishinef,  sat  up  all  night 
and  prayed  and  swayed  and  trembled. 

Packed  in  airtight  against  the  bite  of  the  steely 
out-of-doors,  most  of  the  village  of  Vodna — except 
the  children  and  the  half-witted  Shimsha,  the  ganej 
— huddled  under  its  none-too-plentiful  coverings 
that  night  and  prayed  and  trembled. 

At  five  o'clock  that  red  dawn,  almost  as  if  a  bay 
onet  had  crashed  into  her  dream,  Sara,  her  face 
smeared  with  pallor,  awoke  to  the  smell  of  her  own 
hair  singeing.  A  bayonet  had  crashed,  but  through 
the  door,  terribly! 

The  rest  is  an  anguished  war  frieze  of  fleeing 
figures ;  of  running  hither  and  thither  in  the  wildness 

225 


ROULETTE 

of  fear;  of  mothers  running  with  babes  at  breasts; 
of  men,  their  twisted  faces  steaming  sweat,  locked 
in  the  Laocoon  embrace  of  death.  Banners  of  flame. 
The  exultant  belch  of  iridescent  smoke.  Cries  the 
shape  of  steel  rapiers.  A  mouth  torn  back  to  an 
ear.  Prayers  being  moaned.  The  sticky  stench  of 
coagulating  blood.  Pillage.  Outrage.  Old  men 
dragging  household  chattels.  Figures  crumpling  up 
in  the  outlandish  attitudes  of  death.  The  enormous 
braying  of  frightened  cattle.  A  spurred  heel  over  a 
face  in  that  horrible  moment  when  nothing  can  stay 
its  descent.  The  shriek  of  a  round-bosomed  girl  to 
the  smear  of  wet  lips  across  hers.  The  superb 
daring  of  her  lover  to  kill  her.  A  babe  in  arms. 
Two.  The  black  billowing  of  fireless  smoke. 

A  child  in  the  horse  trough,  knocked  there  from 
its  mother's  arms  by  the  butt  end  of  a  bayonet, 
its  red  curls  quite  sticky  in  a  circle  of  its  little 
blood.  A  half -crazed  mother  with  a  singed  eyebrow, 
blatting  over  it  and  groveling  on  her  breasts  toward 
the  stiffening  figure  for  the  warmth  they  could  not 
give;  the  father,  a  black-haired  child  in  his  arms, 
tearing  her  by  force  out  of  the  zone  of  buckshot, 
plunging  back  into  it  himself  to  cover  up  decently, 
with  his  coat,  what  the  horse  trough  held. 

Dawn.  A  huddle  of  fugitives.  Footsteps  of 
blood  across  the  wide  open  places  of  snow.  A 
mother,  whose  eyes  are  terrible  with  what  she  has 
left  in  the  horse  trough,  fighting  to  turn  back.  A 
husband  who  literally  carries  her,  screaming,  farther 
and  farther  across  the  cruel  open  places.  A  town. 
A  ship.  The  crucified  eyes  of  the  mother  always 
looking  back.  Back. 

326 


ROULETTE 

And  so  it  was  that  Sara  and  Mosher  Turkletaub 
sailed  for  America  with  only  one  twin — Nikolai, 
the  black. 


The  Turkletaubs  prospered.  Turkletaub  Brothers, 
Skirts,  the  year  after  the  war,  paying  a  six-figure 
excess-profit  tax. 

Aaron  dwelt  in  a  three-story,  American-basement 
house  in  West  i2oth  Street,  near  Lenox  Avenue, 
with  his  son  Leo,  office  manager  of  the  Turkletaub 
Skirt  Company,  and  who  had  recently  married  the 
eldest  daughter  of  an  exceedingly  well-to-do  Maiden 
Lane  jewelry  merchant. 

The  Mosher  Turkletaubs  occupied  an  eight-room- 
and-two-baths  apartment  near  by.  Sara,  with 
much  of  the  fleetness  gone  from  her  face  and  a  smile 
tempered  by  a  look  of  unshed  tears,  marketing  now 
by  white-enameled  desk  telephone  or,  on  days 
when  the  limp  from  an  old  burn  down  her  thigh  was 
not  too  troublesome,  walked  up  to  a  plate-glass 
butcher  shop  on  12  5th  Street,  where  there  was  not 
so  much  as  a  drop  of  blood  on  the  marble  counter 
and  the  fowl  hung  in  white,  plucked  window  display 
with  garnitures  of  pink  tissue  paper  about  the 
ankles  and  even  the  dangling  heads  wrapped  so 
that  the  dead  eyes  might  not  give  offense. 

It  was  a  widely  different  Sara  from  the  water 
lugger  of  those  sweaty  Russian  days.  Such  common 
places  of  environment  as  elevator  service,  water  at  the 
turning  of  a  tap,  potatoes  dug  and  delivered  to 
her  dumbwaiter,  had  softened  Sara  and,  it  is  true, 
vanquished,  along  with  the  years,  some  of  the  wing 

227 


ROULETTE 

flash  of  vitality  from  across  her  face.  So  was  the  tough 
fiber  of  her  skin  vanquished  to  almost  a  creaminess, 
and  her  hair,  due  perhaps  to  the  warm  water  always 
on  tap,  had  taken  on  a  sheen,  and  even  through  its 
grayness  grew  out  hardily  and  was  well  trained  to 
fall  in  soft  scallops  over  the  singed  place. 

Yes,  all  in  all,  life  had  sweetened  Sara,  and,  except 
for  the  occasional  look  of  crucifixion  somewhere  back 
in  her  eyes,  had  roly-polied  her  into  new  rotundities 
of  hip  and  shelf  of  bosom,  and  even  to  what  mis 
chievously  promised  to  be  a  scallop  of  second  chin. 

Sara  Turkletaub,  daughter  of  a  ne'er-do-well  who 
had  died  before  her  birth  with  the  shadow  of  an 
unproved  murder  on  him;  Sara,  who  had  run 
swiftly  barefoot  for  the  first  dozen  summers  of  her 
life,  and  married,  without  dower  or  approval,  the 
reckless  son  of  old  Turkletaub,  the  peddler;  Sara, 
who  once  back  in  the  dim  years,  when  a  bull  had  got 
loose  in  the  public  square,  had  jerked  him  to  a  halt 
by  swinging  herself  from  his  horns,  and  later, 
standing  by,  had  helped  hold  him  for  the  emergency 
of  an  un-kosher  slaughter,  not  even  paling  at  the 
slitting  noises  of  the  knife. 

Mosher  Turkletaub,  who  had  peddled  new  feet 
for  stockings  and  calico  for  the  sacques  the  peasant 
women  wore  in  the  fields,  reckoning  no  longer  in 
dozens  of  rubles  but  in  dozens  of  thousands !  Indeed, 
Turkletaub  Brothers  could  now  afford  to  owe  the 
bank  one  hundred  thousand  dollars!  Mosher  dwel 
ling  thus,  thighs  gone  flabby,  in  a  seven-story  apart 
ment  house  with  a  liveried  lackey  to  swing  open  the 
front  door  and  another  to  shoot  him  upward  in  a 
gilded  elevator. 

228 


ROULETTE 

It  was  to  laugh ! 

And  Sara  and  Mosher  with  their  son,  their  turbu 
lent  Nikolai,  now  an  accredited  Doctor  of  Law  and 
practicing  before  the  bar  of  the  city  of  New  York! 

It  was  upon  that  realization,  most  of  all,  that 
Sara  could  surge  tears,  quickly  and  hotly,  and  her 
heart  seem  to  hurt  of  fullness. 

Of  Nikolai,  the  black.    Nicholas,  now: 

It  was  not  without  reason  that  Sara  had  cried 
terrible  tears  over  him,  and  that  much,  but  not  all, 
of  the  struggle  was  gone  from  her  face.  Her  boy  could 
be  as  wayward  as  the  fling  to  his  fierce  black  head,  and 
sickeningly  often  Mosher,  with  a  nausea  at  the  very 
pit  of  him,  had  wielded  the  lash. 

Once  even  Nicholas  in  his  adolescent  youth, 
handsomely  dark,  had  stood  in  Juvenile  Court, 
ringleader  of  a  neighborhood  gang  of  children  on  a 
foray  into  the  strange  world  of  some  packets  of 
cocaine  purloined  from  the  rear  of  a  vacated  Chinese 
laundry. 

Bitterly  had  Mosher  stood  in  the  fore  of  that 
court  room,  thumbing  his  hat,  his  heart  gangrening, 
and  trying  in  a  dumbly  miserable  sort  of  way  to 
press  down,  with  his  hand  on  her  shoulder,  some  of 
the  heaving  of  Sara's  enormous  tears. 

There  had  followed  a  long,  bitter  evening  of 
staying  the  father's  lash  from  descending,  and 
finally,  after  five  hours  with  his  mother  in  his  little 
room,  her  wide  bosom  the  sea  wall  against  which 
the  boiling  waywardness  of  him  surged,  his  high 
head  came  down  like  a  black  swan's  and  apparently, 
at  least  so  far  as  Mosher  knew,  Sara  had  won  again. 

And  so  it  was  that  with  the  bulwark  of  this  mother 
229 


ROULETTE 

and  a  father  who  spared  not  the  wise  rod  even  at  the 
price  of  the  sickness  it  cost  him,  Nicholas  came 
cleanly  through  these  difficult  years  of  the  long 
midchannel  of  his  waywardness. 

At  twenty-one  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  of  the 
city  of  New  York,  although  an  event  so  perilous 
followed  it  by  a  year  or  two  that  the  scallops  of 
strong  hair  that  came  down  over  the  singed  place 
of  Sara's  brow  whitened  that  year;  although  Mosher, 
who  was  beginning  to  curve  slightly  of  the  years  as 
he  walked,  as  if  a  blow  had  been  struck  him  from 
behind,  never  more  than  heard  the  wind  before  the 
storm. 

Listen  in  on  the  following : 

The  third  year  that  Nicholas  practiced  law, 
junior  member  in  the  Broad  Street  firm  of  Leavitt  & 
Dilsheimer,  he  took  to  absenting  himself  from 
dinner  so  frequently,  that  across  the  sturdy  oak 
dining  table,  laid  out  in  a  red-and-white  cloth,  gold- 
band  china  not  too  thick  of  lip,  and  a  cut-glass 
fern  dish  with  cunningly  contrived  cotton  carna 
tions  stuck  in  among  the  growing  green,  Sara,  over 
rich  and  native  foods,  came  more  and  more  to  regard 
her  husband  through  a  clutch  of  fear. 

"I  tell  you,  Mosher,  something  has  come  over 
the  boy.  It  ain't  like  him  to  miss  gefulte-fish  supper 
three  Fridays  in  succession." 

"All  right,  then,  because  he  has  a  few  more  or 
less  gefiilte-fish  suppers  in  his  life,  let  it  worry  you! 
If  that  ain't  a  woman  every  time." 

"Gefulte  fish!  If  that  was  my  greatest  worry. 
But  it's  not  so  easy  to  prepare,  that  you  should  take 
it  so  much  for  granted.  Gefulte  fish,  he  says,  just 

230 


ROULETTE 

like  it  grew  on  trees  and  didn't  mean  two  hours' 
chopping  on  my  feet." 

"Now,  Sara,  was  that  anything  to  fly  off  at?  Do 
I  ever  so  much  as  eat  two  helpings  of  it  in  Gussie's 
house?  That's  how  I  like  yours  better!" 

"Gussie  don't  chop  up  her  onions  fine  enough.  A 
hundred  times  I  tell  her  and  a  hundred  times  she 
does  them  coarse.  Her  own  daughter-in-law,  a  girl 
that  was  raised  in  luxury,  can  cook  better  as  Gussie. 
I  tell  you,  Mosher,  I  take  off  my  hat  to  those  Berk- 
owitz  girls.  And  if  you  should  ask  me,  Ada  is  a 
finer  one  even  than  Leo's  Irma." 

The  sly  look  of  wiseacre  wizened  up  Mosher's  face. 

"Ada!"  she  says.  "The  way  you  pronounce  that 
girl's  name,  Sara,  it's  like  every  tooth  in  your 
mouth  was  diamond  filled  out  of  Berkowitz's  jewelry 
firm." 

Quite  without  precedent  Sara's  lips  began  to 
quiver  at  this  pleasantry. 

"I'm  worried,  Mosher,"  she  said,  putting  down  a 
forkful  of  untasted  food  that  had  journeyed  twice 
toward  her  lips.  "I  don't  say  he — Nicky — I  don't 
say  he  should  always  stay  home  evenings  when  Ada 
comes  over  sometimes  with  Leo  and  Irma,  but  night 
after  night — three  times  whole  nights —  I —  Mo 
sher,  I'm  afraid." 

In  his  utter  well-being  from  her  warming  food, 
Mosher  drank  deeply  and,  if  it  must  be  admitted, 
swishingly,  through  his  mustache,  inhaling  copi 
ously  the  draughts  of  Sara's  coffee. 

Do  not  judge  from  the  mustache  cup  with  the  gilt 
"Papa"  inscribed,  that  Sara's  home  did  not  meticu 
lously  reflect  the  newer  McKinley  period,  so  to 

231 


ROULETTE 

speak,  of  the  cut-glass-china  closet,  curio  cabinet, 
brass  bedstead,  velour  upholstery,  and  the  marbelette 
Psyche. 

They  had  furnished  newly  three  years  before,  the 
year  the  business  almost  doubled,  Sara  and  Gussie 
simultaneously,  the  two  of  them  poring  with 
bibliophiles'  fervor  over  Grand  Rapids  catalogic 
literature. 

Bravely  had  Sara,  even  more  so  than  Gussie, 
sacrificed  her  old  regime  to  the  dealer.  Only  a 
samovar  remained.  A  red-and- white  pressed-glass 
punch  bowl,  purchased  out  of  Nicholas's — aged 
fourteen — pig-bank  savings.  An  enlarged  crayon 
of  her  twins  from  a  baby  picture.  A  patent  rocker 
which  she  kept  in  the  kitchen.  (It  fitted  her  so  for 
the  attitude  of  peeling.)  Two  bisque  plaques,  with 
embossed  angels.  Another  chair  capable  of  meta 
morphosis  into  a  ladder.  And  Mosher's  cup. 

From  this  Mosher  drank  with  gusto.  His  mus 
tache,  to  Sara  so  thrillingly  American,  without  its 
complement  of  beard,  could  flare  so  above  the 
relishing  sounds  of  drinking.  It  flared  now  and 
Mosher  would  share  none  of  her  concern. 

"You  got  two  talents,  Sara.  First,  for  being  my 
wife;  and  second,  for  wasting  worry  like  it  don't 
cost  you  nothing  in  health  or  trips  to  Cold  Springs 
in  the  Catskills  for  the  baths.  Like  it  says  in 
Nicky's  Shakespeare,  a  boy  who  don't  sow  his 
wild  oats  when  he's  young  will  some  day  do  'em 
under  another  name  that  don't  smell  so  sweet." 

"I —  It  ain't  like  I  can  talk  over  Nicky  with 
you,  Mosher,  like  another  woman  could  with  her 
husband.  Either  you  give  him  right  or  right  away 

232 


ROULETTE 

you  get  so  mad  you  make  it  worse  with  him  than 
better." 

"Now,  Sara—" 

"But  only  this  morning  that  Mrs.  Lessauer  I 
meet  sometimes  at  Epstein's  fish  store — you  know 
the  rich  sausage-casings  Lessauers — she  says  to  me 
this  morning,  she  says  with  her  sweetness  full  of 
such  a  meanness,  like  it  was  knives  in  me —  'Me 
and  my  son  and  daughter-in-law  was  coming  out  of 
a  movie  last  night  and  we  saw  your  son  getting  into 
a  taxicab  with  such  a  blonde  in  a  red  hat!'  The 
way  she  said  it,  Mosher,  like  a  cat  licking  its  whis 
kers — 'such  a  blonde  in  a  red  hat'!'* 

"I  wish  I  had  one  dollar  in  my  pocket  for  every 
blond  hat  with  red  hair  her  Felix  had  before  he 
married." 

"But  it's  the  second  time  this  week  I  hear  it, 
Mosher.  The  same  description  of  such  a — a  nix  in 
a  red  hat.  Once  in  a  cabaret  show  Gussie  says  she 
heard  it  from  a  neighbor,  and  now  in  and  out  from 
taxicabs  with  her.  Four  times  this  week  he's  not 
been  home,  Mosher.  I  can't  help  it,  I — I  get  crazy 
with  worry." 

A  sudden,  almost  a  simian  old-age  seemed  to 
roll,  like  a  cloud  that  can  thunder,  across  Sara's 
face.  She  was  suddenly  very  small  and  no  little  old. 
Veins  came  out  on  her  brow  and  upon  the  backs  of 
her  hands,  and  Mosher,  depressed  with  an  unconscious 
awareness,  was  looking  into  the  tired,  cold,  watery 
eyes  of  the  fleet  woman  who  had  been  his. 

"Why,  Sara!"  he  said,  and  came  around  the  table 
to  let  her  head  wilt  in  unwonted  fashion  against  his 
coat.  "Mamma!" 

233 


ROULETTE 

"I'm  tired,  Mosher."  She  said  her  words  almost 
like  a  gush  of  warm  blood  from  the  wound  of  her 
mouth.  "I'm  tired  from  keeping  up  and  holding 
in.  I  have  felt  so  sure  for  these  last  four  years  that 
we  have  saved  him  from  his — his  wildness — and 
now,  to  begin  all  over  again,  I — I  'ain't  got  the  fight 
left  in  me,  Mosher." 

"You  don't  have  to  have  any  fight  in  you,  Mamma. 
'Ain't  you  got  a  husband  and  a  son  to  fight  for  you? " 

"Sometimes  I  think,  except  for  the  piece  of  my 
heart  I  left  lying  back  there,  that  there  are  worse 
agonies  than  even  massacres.  I've  struggled  so 
that  he  should  be  good  and  great,  Mosher,  and  now, 
after  four  years  already  thinking  I've  won — maybe, 
after  all,  I  haven't." 

"Why,  Sara!  Why,  Mamma!  Shame!  I  never 
saw  you  like  this  before.  You  ain't  getting  sick  for 
another  trip  to  the  Catskills,  are  you?  Maybe  you 
need  some  baths — " 

"Sulphur  water  don't  cure  heart  sickness." 

"Heart  sickness,  nonsense!  You  know  I  don't 
always  take  sides  with  Nicky,  Mamma.  I  don't 
say  he  hasn't  been  a  hard  boy  to  raise.  But  a  man, 
Mamma,  is  a  man !  I  wouldn't  think  much  of  him  if 
he  wasn't.  You  'ain't  got  him  to  your  apron  string 
in  short  pants  any  more.  Whatever  troubles  we've 
had  with  him,  women  haven't  been  one  of  them. 
Shame,  Mamma,  the  first  time  your  grown-up  son  of 
a  man  cuts  up  maybe  a  little  nonsense  with  the  girls ! 
Shame!" 

"Girls!  No  one  would  want  more  than  me  he 
should  settle  himself  down  to  a  fine,  self-respecting 
citizen  with  a  fine,  sweet  girl  like  Ad — " 

234 


ROULETTE 

"Believe  me,  and  I  ain't  ashamed  to  say  it, 
I  wasn't  an  angel,  neither,  every  minute  before  I 
was  married." 

"My  husband  brags  to  me  about  his  indiscre- 
tioncies." 

"Na,  na,  Mamma,  right  away  when  I  open  my 
mouth  you  make  out  a  case  against  me.  I  only  say 
it  to  show  you  how  a  mother  maybe  don't  under 
stand  as  well  as  a  father  how  natural  a  few  wild 
oats  can  be." 

"L-Leo  didn't  have  'em." 

"Leo  ain't  a  genius.    He's  just  a  good  boy." 

"I— I  worry  so!" 

"Sara,  I  ask  you,  wouldn't  I  worry,  too,  if  there 
was  a  reason?  God  forbid  if  his  nonsense  should 
lead  to  really  something  serious,  then  it's  time  to 
worry." 

Sara  Turkletaub  dried  her  eyes,  but  it  was  as  if 
the  shadow  of  crucifixion  had  moved  forward  in 
them. 

"If  just  once,  Mosher,  Nicky  would  make  it  easy 
for  me,  like  Leo  did  for  Gussie.  When  Leo's  time 
comes  he  marries  a  fine  girl  like  Irma  Berkowitz 
from  a  fine  family,  and  has  fine  children,  without 
Gussie  has  to  cry  her  eyes  out  first  maybe  he's  in 
company  that — that — " 

"I  don't  say,  Sara,  we  didn't  have  our  hard 
times  with  your  boy.  But  we  got  results  enough 
that  we  shouldn't  complain.  Maybe  you're  right. 
With  a  boy  like  Leo,  a  regular  good  business  head 
who  comes  into  the  firm  with  us,  it  ain't  been  such 
a  strain  for  Gussie  and  Aaron  as  for  us  with  a 
genius.  But  neither  have  they  got  the  smart  son, 
16  235 


ROULETTE 

the  lawyer  of  the  family,  for  theirs.  We  got  a  tem 
perament  in  ours,  Sara.  Ain't  that  something  to 
be  proud  of?" 

She  laid  her  cheek  to  his  lapel,  the  freshet  of  her 
tears  past  staying. 

"I — I  know  it,  Mosher.  It  ain't — often  I  give 
way  like  this." 

"We  got  such  results  as  we  can  be  proud  of,  Sara. 
A  genius  of  a  lawyer  son  on  his  way  to  the  bench. 
Mark  my  word  if  I  ain't  right,  on  his  way  to  the 
bench!" 

"Yes,  yes,  Mosher." 

"Well  then,  Sara,  I  ask  you,  is  it  nice  to — " 

"I  know  it,  Papa.  I  ought  to  be  ashamed.  In 
stead  of  me  fighting  you  to  go  easy  with  the  boy, 
this  time  it's  you  fighting  me.  If  only  he — he  was 
the  kind  of  boy  I  could  talk  this  out  with,  it  wouldn't 
worry  me  so.  When  it  comes  to — to  a  girl — it's  so  dif 
ferent.  It's  just  that  I'm  tired,  Mosher.  If  anything 
was  to  go  wrong  after  all  these  years  of  struggling 
for  him — alone — " 

"Alone!  Alone!  Why,  Sara!  Shame!  Time 
after  time  for  punishing  him  I  was  a  sick  man!" 

"That's  it!  That's  why  so  much  of  it  was  alone. 
I  don't  know  why  I  should  say  it  all  to-night  after — 
after  so  many  years  of  holding  in." 

"Say  what?" 

"You  meant  well,  God  knows  a  father  never 
meant  better,  but  it  wasn't  the  way  to  handle  our 
boy's  nature  with  punishments,  and  a  quick  temper 
like  yours.  Your  way  was  wrong,  Mosher,  and  I 
knew  it.  That's  why  so  much  of  it  was — alone — so 

236 


ROULETTE 

much  that  I  had  to  contend  with  I  was  afraid  to 
tell  you,  for  fear — for  fear — " 

"Now,  now,  Mamma,  is  that  the  way  to  cry  your 
eyes  out  about  nothing?  I  don't  say  I'm  not  some 
times  hasty — " 

"Time  and  time  again — keeping  it  in  from  you — 
after  the  Chinese  laundry  that  night  after  you — you 
whipped  him  so — you  never  knew  the  months  of 
nights  with  him  afterward — when  I  found  out  he 
liked  that — stuff!  Me  alone  with  him — " 

"Sara,  is  now  time  to  rake  up  such  ten-year-old 
nonsense!" 

"It's  all  coming  out  in  me  now,  Mosher.  The 
strain.  You  never  knew.  That  time  you  had  to 
send  me  to  the  Catskills  for  the  baths.  You  thought 
it  was  rheumatism.  I  knew  what  was  the  matter 
with  me.  Worry.  The  nights — Mosher.  He  liked  it. 
I  found  it  hid  away  in  the  toes  of  his  gymnasium 
shoes  and  in  the  mouth  to  his  bugle.  He — liked  that 
stuff,  Mosher.  You  didn't  know  that,  did  you?" 

"Liked  what?" 

"It.  The— the  stuff  from  the  Chinese  laundry. 
Even  after  the  Juvenile  Court,  when  you  thought 
it  was  all  over  after  the  whipping  that  night.  He'd 
snuff  it  up.  I  found  him  twice  on  his  bed  after 
school.  All  druggy -like — half  sleeping  and  half 
laughing.  The  gang  at  school  he  was  in  with — 
learned  him — " 

"  You  mean— ?" 

"It  ain't  so  easy  to  undo  with  a  day  in  Juvenile 
Court  such  a  habit  like  that.  You  thought  the 
court  was  the  finish.  My  fight  just  began  then!" 

237 


ROULETTE 

"Why,  Sara!"       , 

"You  remember  the  time  he  broke  his  kneecap 
and  how  I  fighted  the  doctors  against  the  hypoder 
mic  and  you  got  so  mad  because  I  wouldn't  let  him 
have  it  to  ease  the  pain.  I  knew  why  it  was  better 
he  should  suffer  than  have  it.  I  knew!  It  was  a 
long  fight  I  had  with  him  alone,  Mosher.  He  liked 
that— stuff." 

"That — don't — seem  possible." 

"And  that  wasn't  the  only  lead-pipe  case  that 
time,  neither,  Mosher.  Twice  I  had  to  lay  out  of 
my  own  pocket  so  you  wouldn't  know,  and  talk  to 
him  'til  sometimes  I  thought  I  didn't  have  any 
more  tears  left  inside  of  me.  Between  you  and  your 
business  worries  that  year  of  the  garment-workers' 
strike — and  our  boy — I — after  all  that  I  haven't  got 
the  strength  left.  Now  that  he's  come  out  of  it  big, 
I  can't  begin  over  again.  I  haven't  got  what  he 
would  call  the  second  wind  for  it.  If  anything 
should  keep  him  now  from  going  straight  ahead  to 
make  him  count  as  a  citizen,  I  wouldn't  have  the 
strength  left  to  fight  it,  Mosher.  Wouldn't!" 

And  so  Sara  Turkletaub  lay  back  with  the  ripple 
writing  of  stormy  high  tides  crawling  out  in  wrinkles 
all  over  her  face  and  her  head,  that  he  had  never 
seen  low,  wilting  there  against  his  breast. 

He  could  not  be  done  with  soothing  her,  his  own 
face  suddenly  as  puckered  as  an  old  shoe,  his  chin 
like  the  toe  curling  up. 

"Mamma,  Mamma,  I  didn't  know!  God  knows  I 
never  dreamt — " 

"I  know  you  didn't,  Mosher.  I  ain't  mad.  I'm 
only  tired.  I  'ain't  got  the  struggle  left  in  me.  This 

238 


ROULETTE 

feeling  won't  last  in  me,  I'll  be  all  right,  but  I'm 
tired,  Mosher — so  tired." 

"My  poor  Sara!" 

"And  frightened.  Such  a  blonde  in  a  red  hat. 
Cabarets.  Taxicabs.  Night  after  night.  Mosher, 
hold  me.  I'm  frightened." 

Cheek  to  cheek  in  their  dining  room  of  too-carved 
oak,  twin  shadow-boxed  paintings  of  Fruit  and 
Fish,  the  cut-glass  punch  bowl  with  the  hooked-on 
cups,  the  cotton  palm,  casually  rigid  velour  drapes, 
the  elusive  floor  bell,  they  huddled,  these  two, 
whose  eyes  were  branded  with  the  scars  of  what 
they  had  looked  upon,  and  a  slow,  a  vast  anger 
began  to  rise  in  Mosher,  as  if  the  blood  in  his  throat 
were  choking  him,  and  a  surge  of  it,  almost  purple, 
rose  out  of  his  collar  and  stained  his  face. 

"Loafer!  Low-life!  No-'count!  His  whole  body 
ain't  worth  so  much  as  your  little  finger.  I'll  learn 
him  to  be  a  worry  to  you  with  this  all-night  business. 
By  God!  I'll  learn  my  loafer  of  a  son  to — " 

On  the  pistol  shot  of  that,  Sara's  body  jumped 
out  of  its  rigidity,  all  her  faculties  coiled  to 
spring. 

"He  isn't!  You  know  he  isn't!  'Loafer'!  Shame 
on  you!  Whatever  else  he  is,  he's  not  a  loafer. 
Boys  will  be  boys — you  say  so  yourself.  'Loafer' ! 
You  should  know  once  what  some  parents  go 
through  with  real  loafers  for  sons — " 

"No  child  what  brings  you  such  worry  is  any 
thing  else  than  a  loafer!" 

"And  I  say  'no'!  The  minute  I  so  much  as  give 
you  a  finger  in  finding  fault  with  that  boy,  right 
away  you  take  a  hand ! " 

239 


ROULETTE 

"I'll  break  his—" 

"You  don't  know  yet  a  joke  when  you  hear  one. 
I  wanted  to  get  you  mad!  I  get  a  little  tired  and  I 
try  to  make  myself  funny." 

"There  wasn't  no  funniness  in  the  way  your  eyes 
looked  when  you — " 

"I  tell  you  I  didn't  mean  one  word.  No  matter 
what  uneasiness  that  child  has  brought  me,  always 
he  has  given  me  more  in  happiness.  Twice  more. 
That's  what  he's  been.  Twice  of  everything  to 
make  up  for — for  only  being  half  of  my  twins." 

"Then  what  the  devil  is—" 

"I  don't  envy  Gussie  her  Leo  and  his  steady  ways. 
Didn't  you  say  yourself  for  a  boy  like  ours  you  got 
to  pay  with  a  little  uneasiness?" 

"Not  when  that  little  uneasiness  is  enough  to 
make  his  mother  sick." 

"Sick!  If  I  felt  any  better  I'd  be  ashamed  of 
having  so  much  health !  If  you  get  mad  with  him 
and  try  to  ask  him  where  he  stays  every  night  is 
all  that  can  cause  me  worry.  It's  natural  a  handsome 
boy  like  ours  should  sow  what  they  call  his  wild  oat. 
With  such  a  matzos  face  like  poor  Leo,  from  where 
he  broke  his  nose,  I  guess  it  ain't  so  easy  for  him  to 
have  his  wild  oat.  Promise  me,  Mosher,  you  won't 
ask  one  question  or  get  mad  at  him.  His  mother 
knows  how  to  handle  her  boy  so  he  don't  even 
know  he's  handled." 

"  1 11  handle  him— " 

"See  now,  just  look  at  yourself  once  in  the  glass 
with  your  eyes  full  of  red.  That's  why  I  can't  tell 
you  nothing.  Right  away  you  fly  to  pieces.  I  say 
again,  you  don't  know  how  to  handle  your  son. 

240 


ROULETTE 

Promise  me  you  won't  say  nothing  to  him  or  let  on, 
Mosher.    Promise  me." 

"That's  the  way  with  you  women.  You  get  a  man 
crazy  and  then — " 

"I  tell  you  it's  just  my  nonsense." 

"If  I  get  mad  you're  mad,  and  if  I  don't  get  mad 
you're  mad !  Go  do  me  something  to  help  me  solve 
such  a  riddle  like  you." 

"It's  because  me  and  his  aunt  Gussie  are  a  pair 
of  matchmaking  old  women.  That  the  two  cousins 
should  marry  the  two  sisters,  Irma  and  Ada,  we  got 
it  fixed  between  us!  Just  as  if  because  we  want  it 
that  way  it's  got  to  happen  that  way!" 

"A  pair  of  geeses,  the  two  of  you!" 

"I  wouldn't  let  on  to  Gussie,  but  Ada,  the  single 
one,  has  got  Leo's  Irma  beat  for  looks.  Such  a  com 
plexion!  And  the  way  she  comes  over  to  sew  with 
me  afternoons!  A  young  girl  like  that!  An  old 
woman  like  me!  You  see,  Mosher?  See?" 

"See,  she  asks  me.  What  good  does  it  do  me  if  I 
see  or  I  don't  see  when  his  mother  gets  her  mind 
made  up?" 

"But  does  Nicky  so  much  as  look  at  her?  That 
night  at  Leo's  birthday  I  was  ashamed  the  way  he 
right  away  had  an  engagement  after  supper,  when 
she  sat  next  to  him  and  all  through  the  meal  gave 
him  the  white  meat  off  her  own  plate.  Why,  the 
flowered  chiffon  dress  that  girl  had  on  cost  ten  dollars 
a  yard  if  it  cost  a  cent.  Did  Nicky  so  much  as  look 
at  her?  No." 

"Too  many  birthdays  in  this  family." 

"I  notice  you  eat  them  when  they  are  set  down  in 
front  of  you!" 

241 


ROULETTE 

"Eat  what?" 

"The  birthdays." 

"Ha!  That's  fine!  A  new  dish.  Boiled  birth 
days  with  horseradish  sauce." 

"All  right,  then,  the  birthday  parties.  Don't 
be  so  exactly  with  me.  Many  a  turn  in  his  grave 
you  yourself  have  given  the  man  who  made  the  dic 
tionary.  I  got  other  worries  than  language.  If  I 
knew  where  he  is — to-night — " 

Rather  contentedly,  while  Sara  cleared  and 
tidied,  Mosher  snapped  open  his  evening  paper, 
drawing  his  spectacles  down  from  the  perch  of 
his  forehead. 

"You  women,"  he  said,  breathing  out  with  the 
male's  easy  surcease  from  responsibility — "you 
women  and  your  worries.  If  you  'ain't  got  'em,  you 
make  'em." 

"Heigh-ho!"  sighed  out  Sara,  presently,  having 
finished,  and  diving  into  her  open  workbasket  for 
the  placidity  her  flying  needle  could  so  cunningly 
simulate.  ' '  Heigh-ho ! ' ' 

But  inside  her  heart  was  beating  over  and  over 
again  to  itself,  rapidly: 

"If  -  only  - 1  -  knew  -  where  -  he  -  is  -  to  -  night  -  if  - 
only  - 1  -  knew  -  where  -  he  -  is  -  to  -  night." 


ii 

This  is  where  he  was : 

In  the  Forty-fifth-Street  flat  of  Miss  Josie  Drew, 
known  at  various  times  and  places  as  Hattie 
Moore,  Hazel  Derland,  Mrs.  Hazel,  and —  But  what 
does  it  matter. 

342 


ROULETTE 

At  this  writing  it  was  Josie  Drew  of  whom  more 
is  to  be  said  of  than  for. 

Yet  pause  to  consider  the  curve  of  her  clay. 
Josie  had  not  molded  her  nose.  Its  upward  fling 
was  like  the  brush  of  a  perfumed  feather  duster  to 
the  senses.  Nor  her  mouth.  It  had  bloomed  se 
ductively,  long  before  her  lip  stick  rushed  to  its 
aid  and  abetment,  into  a  cherry  at  the  bottom  of  a 
glass  for  which  men  quaffed  deeply.  There  was 
something  rather  terrifyingly  inevitable  about  her. 
Just  as  the  tide  is  plaything  of  the  stars,  so  must 
the  naughty  turn  to  Josie 's  ankle  have  been  comple 
ment  to  the  naughty  turn  of  her  mind. 

It  is  not  easy  for  the  woman  with  a  snub  nose  and 
lips  molded  with  a  hard  pencil  to  bleed  the  milk  of 
human  kindness  over  the  frailties  of  the  fruity 
chalice  that  contained  Miss  Drew.  She  could  not 
know,  for  instance,  if  her  own  gaze  was  merely 
owlish  and  thin-lashed,  the  challenge  of  eyes  that 
are  slightly  too  long.  Miss  Drew  did.  Simply 
drooping  hers  must  have  stirred  her  with  a  none- 
too-nice  sense  of  herself,  like  the  swell  of  his  biceps 
can  bare  the  teeth  of  a  gladiator. 

That  had  been  the  Josie  Drew  of  eighteen. 

At  thirty  she  penciled  the  droop  to  her  eyebrows 
a  bit  and  had  a  not  always  successful  trick  of  powder 
ing  out  the  lurking  caves  under  her  eyes.  There 
was  even  a  scar,  a  peculiar  pocking  of  little  shotted 
spots  as  if  glass  had  ground  in,  souvenir  of  one  out 
of  dozens  of  such  nights  of  orgies,  this  particular  one 
the  result  of  some  unmentionable  jealousy  she  must 
have  coaxed  to  the  surface. 

She  wore  it  plastered  over  with  curls.  It  was  said 
243 


ROULETTE 

that  in  rage  it  turned  green.  But  who  knows?  It 
was  also  said  that  Josie  Drew's  correct  name  was 
Josie  Rosalsky.  But  again  who  knows?  Her  past 
was  vivid  with  the  heat  lightning  of  the  sharp  storms 
of  men's  lives.  At  nineteen  she  had  worn  in  public 
restaurants  a  star-sapphire  necklace,  originally  de 
signed  by  a  soap  magnate  for  his  wife,  of  these  her 
birthstones. 

At  twenty  her  fourteen-room  apartment  faced  the 
Park,  but  was  on  the  ground  floor  because  a  vice- 
president  of  a  bank,  a  black-broadcloth  little  pelican 
of  a  man,  who  stumped  on  a  cane  and  had  a  pink 
tin  roof  to  his  mouth,  disliked  elevators. 

At  twenty- three  and  unmentionably  enough,  a  son 
of  a  Brazilian  coffee  king,  inflamed  with  the  deviltry 
of  debauch,  had  ground  a  wine  tumbler  against  her 
forehead,  inducing  the  pock  marks.  At  twenty-seven 
it  was  the  fourth  vice-president  of  a  Harlem  bank. 
At  twenty-nine  an  interim.  Startling  to  Josie 
Drew.  Terrifying.  Lean.  For  the  first  time  in 
eight  years  her  gasoline  expenditures  amounted  to 
ninety  cents  a  month  instead  of  from  forty  to  ninety 
dollars.  And  then  not  at  the  garage,  but  at  the 
corner  drug  store.  Cleaning  fluid  for  kicked-out 
glove  and  slipper  tips. 

The  little  jangle  of  chatelaine  absurdities  which 
she  invariably  affected — mesh  bag,  lip  stick,  memo 
randum  (for  the  traffic  in  telephone  numbers), 
vanity,  and  cigarette  case  were  gold — filled.  There 
remained  a  sapphire  necklace,  but  this  one  faith 
fully  copied  to  the  wink  of  the  stars  and  the  pearl 
clasp  by  the  Chemic  Jewel  Company.  Much  of  the 
indoor  appeal  of  Miss  Drew  was  still  the  pink  silki- 

244 


ROULETTE 

ness  of  her,  a  little  stiffened  from  washing  and  ironing, 
it  is  true,  but  there  was  a  flesh-colored  arrangement 
of  intricate  drape  that  was  rosily  kind  to  her.  Also 
a  vivid  yellow  one  of  a  later  and  less  expensive 
period,  all  heavily  slashed  in  Valenciennes  lace.  This 
brought  out  a  bit  of  virago  through  her  induced 
blondness,  but  all  the  same  it  italicized  her,  just  as 
the  crescent  of  black  court  plaster  exclaimed  at  the 
whiteness  of  her  back. 

She  could  spend  an  entire  morning  fluffing  at 
these  things,  pressing  out,  with  a  baby  electric  iron 
and  a  sleeve  board,  a  crumple  of  chiffon  to  new 
sheerness,  getting  at  spots  with  cleaning  fluid. 
Under  alcoholic  duress  Josie  dropped  things.  There 
was  a  furious  stain  down  the  yellow,  from  a  home 
brew  of  canned  lobster  a  la  Newburg.  The  stain  she 
eliminated  entirely  by  cutting  out  the  front  panel 
and  wearing  it  skimpier. 

In  these  first  slanting  years,  in  her  furnished 
flat  of  upright,  mandolin-attachment  piano,  nude 
plaster-of-Paris  Bacchante  holding  a  cluster  of 
pink-glass  incandescent  grapes,  divan  mountainous 
with  scented  pillows,  she  was  about  as  obvious  as  a 
gilt  slipper  that  has  started  to  rub,  or  a  woman's  kiss 
that  is  beery  and  leaves  a  red  imprint. 

To  Nicholas  Turkletaub,  whose  adolescence  had 
been  languid  and  who  had  never  known  a  woman 
with  a  fling,  a  perfume,  or  a  moue  (there  had  been 
only  a  common-sense-heeled  co-ed  of  his  law-school 
days  and  the  rather  plump  little  sister-in-law  of 
Leo's),  the  dawn  of  Josie  cleft  open  something  in  his 
consciousness,  releasing  maddened  perceptions  that 
stung  his  eyeballs.  He  sat  in  the  imitation  cheap 

245 


ROULETTE 

frailty  of  her  apartment  like  a  young  bull  with 
threads  of  red  in  his  eyeballs,  his  head,  not  un- 
poetic  with  its  shag  of  black  hair,  lowered  as  if  to 
bash  at  the  impotence  of  the  thing  she  aroused  in 
him. 

Also,  a  curious  thing  had  happened  to  Josie. 
Something  so  jaded  in  her  that  she  thought  it  long 
dead,  was  stirring  sappily,  as  if  with  springtime. 

Maybe  it  was  a  resurgence  of  sense  of  power 
after  months  of  terror  that  the  years  had  done  for 
her. 

At  any  rate,  it  was  something  strangely  and  deeply 
sweet. 

"Nicky-boy,"  she  said,  sitting  on  the  couch  with 
her  back  against  the  wall,  her  legs  out  horizontally 
and  clapping  her  rubbed  gilt  slippers  together — 
"Nicky-boy  must  go  home  ten  o'clock  to-night. 
Josie-girl  tired." 

Her  mouth,  like  a  red  paper  rose  that  had  been 
crushed  there,  was  always  bunched  to  baby  talk. 

"Come  here,"  he  said,  and  jerked  her  so  that  the 
breath  jumped. 

"Won't,"  she  said,  and  came. 

His  male  prowess  was  enormous  to  him.  He  could 
bend  her  back  almost  double  with  a  kiss,  and  did. 
His  first  kisses  that  he  spent  wildly.  He  could  have 
carried  her  off  like  Persephone's  bull,  and  wanted  to, 
so  swift  his  mood.  His  flare  for  life  and  for  her 
leaped  out  like  a  flame,  and  something  precious  that 
had  hardly  survived  sixteen  seemed  to  stir  in  the 
early  grave  of  her  heart. 

"Oh,  Nicky-boy!  Nicky-boy!"  she  said,  and  he 
caught  that  she  was  yearning  over  him. 

246 


ROULETTE 

"  Don't  say  it  in  down  curves  like  that.  Say  it 
up.  Up." 

She  didn't  get  this,  but,  with  the  half -fearful  tail 
of  her  eye  for  the  clock,  let  him  hold  her  quiescent, 
while  the  relentlessly  sliding  moments  ticked  against 
her  unease. 

''I'm  jealous  of  every  hour  you  lived  before  I 
met  you." 

' '  Big-bad-eat- Josie-up-boy ! " 

"I  want  to  kiss  your  eyes  until  they  go  in  deep — 
through  you — I  don't  know — until  they  hurt — 
deep — I — want — to  hurt  you — " 

"Oh!    Oh!    Josie  scared!" 

"You're  like  one  of  those  orange  Angora  kittens. 
Yellow.  Soft.  Deep." 

"I  Nicky's  pussy." 

"I  can  see  myself  in  your  eyes.  Shut  me  up  in 
them." 

"Josie  so  tired." 

"Of  me?" 

"Nicky  so — so  strong." 

' '  My  poor  pussy !    I  didn't  mean — ' ' 

"Nicky-boy,  go  home  like  good  Nicky." 

"I  don't  want  ever  to  go  home." 

"Go  now,  Josie  says." 

"You  mean  never." 

"Now!" 

He  kissed  his  "No,  No,"  down  against  each  of  her 
eyelids. 

"You  must,"  she  said  this  time,  and  pushed  him 
off. 

For  a  second  he  sat  quite  still,  the  black  shine  in 
his  eyes  seeming  to  give  off  diamond  points. 

247 


ROULETTE 

"You're  nervous,"  he  said,  and  jerked  her  back 
so  that  the  breath  jumped  again. 

The  tail  of  her  glance  curved  to  the  gilt  clock  half 
hidden  behind  a  litter  of  used  highball  glasses,  and 
then,  seeing  that  his  quickly  suspicious  eye  followed 
hers: 

"No,"  she  said,  "not  nervous.  Just  tired — and 
thirsty." 

He  poured  her  a  high  drink  from  a  decanter, 
and  held  it  so  that,  while  she  sipped,  her  teeth  were 
magnified  through  the  tumbler,  and  he  thought  that 
adorable  and  tilted  the  glass  higher  against  her 
lips,  and  when  she  choked  soothed  her  with  a  crush 
of  kisses. 

"You  devil,"  he  said,  "everything  you  do  maddens 
me." 

There  was  a  step  outside  and  a  scraping  noise  at 
the  lock.  It  was  only  a  vaudeville  youth,  slender 
as  a  girl,  who  lived  on  the  floor  above,  feeling  un 
steadily,  and  a  bit  the  worse  for  wear,  for  the  lock 
that  must  eventually  fit  his  key. 

But  on  that  scratch  into  the  keyhole,  Josie  leaped 
up  in  terror,  so  that  Nicholas  went  staggering  back 
against  the  Bacchante,  shattering  to  a  fine  ring  of 
crystal  some  of  the  pink  grapes,  and  on  that  instant 
she  clicked  out  the  remaining  lights,  shoving  him, 
with  an  unsuspected  and  catamount  strength,  into 
an  adjoining  box  of  a  kitchenette. 

There  an  uncovered  bulb  burned  greasily  over  a 
small  refrigerator,  that  stood  on  a  table  and  left 
only  the  merest  slit  of  walking  space.  It  was  the 
none  too  fastidious  kitchen  of  a  none  too  fastidious 
woman.  A  pair  of  dress  shields  hung  on  the  impro- 

248 


ROULETTE 

vised  clothesline  of  a  bit  of  twine.  A  clump  of  sar 
dines,  one  end  still  shaped  to  the  tin,  cloyed  in  its 
own  oil,  crumbily,  as  if  bread  had  been  sopped  in, 
the  emptied  tin  itself,  with  the  top  rolled  back  with 
a  patent  key,  filled  now  with  old  beer.  Obviously 
the  remaining  contents  of  a  tumbler  had  been  flung 
in.  Cigarette  stubs  floated.  A  pasteboard  cylin 
drical  box,  labeled  "Sodium  Bi-carbonate, "  had  a 
spoon  stuck  in  it.  A  rubber  glove  drooped  deadly 
over  the  sink  edge. 

On  the  second  that  he  stood  in  that  smelling  fog, 
probably  for  no  longer  than  it  took  the  swinging  door 
to  settle,  something  of  sickness  rushed  over  Nicholas. 
The  unaired  odors  of  old  foods.  Those  horrific 
things  on  the  line.  The  oil  that  had  so  obviously 
been  sopped  up  with  bread.  The  old  beer,  edged  in 
grease.  Something  of  sickness  and  a  panoramic 
flash  of  things  absurdly,  almost  unreasonably 
irrelevant. 

Snow,  somewhere  back  in  his  memory.  A  frozen 
silence  of  it  that  was  clean  and  thin  to  the  smell. 
The  ridges  in  the  rattan  with  which  his  father  had 
whipped  him  the  night  after  the  Chinese  laundry. 
The  fine  white  head  of  the  dean  of  the  law  school. 
His  mother  baking  for  Friday  night  in  a  blue-and- 
white  gingham  apron  that  enveloped  her.  Red 
curls — some  one's — somewhere.  The  string  of  tiny 
Oriental  pearls  that  rose  and  fell  with  the  little 
pouter-pigeon  swell  of  a  bosom.  Pretty  perturba 
tion.  His  cousin's  sister-in-law,  Ada.  A  small  hole 
in  a  pink-silk  stocking,  peeping  like  a  little  rising 
sun  above  the  heel  of  a  rubbed  gilt  slipper.  Josie's 
slipper. 

249 


ROULETTE 

Something  seemed  suddenly  to  rise  in  Nicholas, 
with  the  quick  capillarity  of  water  boiling  over. 

The  old  familiar  star-spangled  red  over  which 
Sara  had  time  after  time  laid  sedative  hand  against 
his  seeing,  sprang  out.  The  pit  of  his  passion  was 
bottomless,  into  which  he  was  tumbling  with  the  icy 
laughter  of  breaking  glass. 

Then  he  struck  out  against  the  swinging  door  so 
that  it  ripped  outward  with  a  sough  of  stale  air, 
striking  Josie  Drew,  as  she  approached  it  from  the 
room  side,  so  violently  that  her  teeth  bit  down  into 
her  lips  and  the  tattling  blood  began  to  flow. 

"Nicky!  It's  a  mistake.  I  thought — my  sister — 
It  got  so  late — you  wouldn't  go.  Go  now !  The  key 
— turning —  Nervous — silly — mistake.  Go — " 

He  laughed,  something  exhilarant  in  his  boiling 
over,  and  even  in  her  sudden  terror  of  him  she  looked 
at  his  bare  teeth  and  felt  the  unnice  beauty  of  the 
storm. 

"Nicky,"  she  half  cried,  "don't  be— foolish!    I—" 

And  then  he  struck  her  across  the  lip  so  that  her 
teeth  cut  in  again. 

"There  is  some  one  coming  here  to-night,"  he 
said,  with  his  smile  still  very  white. 

She  sat  on  the  couch,  trying  to  bravado  down  her 
trembling. 

"And  what  if  there  is?  He'll  beat  you  up  for  this! 
You  fool!  I've  tried  to  explain  a  dozen  times.  You 
know,  or  if  you  don't  you  ought  to,  that  there's  a — 
friend.  A  traveling  salesman.  Automobile  acces 
sories.  Long  trips,  but  good  money.  Good  money. 
And  here  you  walk  in  a  few  weeks  ago  and  expect  to 
find  the  way  clear!  Good  boy,  you  like  some  one  to 

250 


ROULETTE 

go  ahead  of  you  with  a  snow  cleaner,  don't  you? 
Yes,  there's  some  one  due  in  here  off  his  trip  to 
night.  What's  the  use  trying  to  tell  Nicky-boy  with 
his  hot  head.  He's  got  a  hot  head,  too.  Go,  and 
let  me  clear  the  way  for  you,  Nicky.  For  good  if 
you  say  the  word.  But  I  have  to  know  where  I'm  at. 
Every  girl  does  if  she  wants  to  keep  her  body  and 
soul  together.  You  don't  let  me  know  where  I 
stand.  You  know  you've  got  me  around  your  little 
finger  for  the  saying,  but  you  don't  say.  Only  go 
now,  Nicky-boy.  For  God's  sake,  it's  five  minutes 
to  eleven  and  he's  due  in  on  that  ten-forty-five. 
Nicky-boy,  go,  and  come  back  to  me  at  six  to 
morrow  night.  I'll  have  the  way  clear  then,  for 
good.  Quit  blinking  at  me  like  that,  Nicky.  You 
scare  me!  Quit!  When  you  come  back  to-morrow 
evening  there  won't  be  any  more  going  home  for 
Josie's  Nicky-boy.  Nicky,  go  now.  He's  hot 
headed,  too.  Quit  blinking,  Nicky — for  God's  sake — 
Nicky—" 

It  was  then  Nicholas  bent  back  her  head  as  he  did 
when  he  kissed  her  there  on  the  swan's  arch  to  her 
neck,  only  this  time  his  palm  was  against  her  fore 
head  and  his  other  between  her  shoulder  blades. 

"I  could  kill  you,"  he  said,  and  laughed  with  his 
teeth.  "I  could  bend  back  your  neck  until  it 
breaks." 

"Ni— i— NIC— ky— " 

"And  I  want  to,"  he  said  through  the  star- 
spangled  red.  "I  want  you  to  crack  when  I  twist. 
I'm  going  to  twist — twist — " 

And  he  did,  shoving  back  her  hair  with  his  palm, 
and  suddenly  bared,  almost  like  a  grimace,  up  at 
17  251 


ROULETTE 

him,  was  the  glass-shotted  spot  where  the  wine 
tumbler  had  ground  in,  greenish  now,  like  the 
flanges  of  her  nostrils. 

Somewhere — down  a  dear  brow  was  a  singed  spot 
like  that — singed  with  the  flame  of  pain — 

"Nicky,  for  God's  sake — you're — you're  sprain 
ing  my  neck !  Let  go !  Nicky.  God !  if  you  hadn't 
let  go  just  when  you  did.  You  had  me  croaking. 
Nicky -boy  —  kiss  me  now  and  go!  Go!  To 
morrow  at  six — clear  for  you — always — only  go — 
please,  boy — my  terrible — my  wonderful.  To-mor 
row  at  six." 

Somehow  he  was  walking  home,  the  burn  of  her 
lips  still  against  his,  loathsome  and  gorgeous  to  his 
desires.  He  wanted  to  tear  her  out  by  the  roots  from 
his  consciousness.  To  be  rollickingly,  cleanly  free 
of  her.  His  teeth  shone  against  the  darkness  as 
he  walked,  drenched  to  the  skin  of  his  perspira 
tion  and  one  side  of  his  collar  loose,  the  buttonhole 
slit. 

Rollickingly  free  of  her  and  yet  how  devilishly  his 
shoes  could  clat  on  the  sidewalk. 

To-morrow  at  six.  To-morrow  at  six.  To-morrow 
at  six. 


It  was  some  time  after  midnight  when  he  let  him 
self  into  the  uptown  apartment.  He  thought  he 
heard  his  mother,  trying  to  be  swift,  padding  down 
the  hallway  as  if  she  had  been  waiting  near  the  door. 
That  would  have  angered  him. 

The  first  of  these  nights,  only  four  weeks  before 
(it  seemed  years),  he  had  come  in  hotly  about  four 

252 


ROULETTE 

o'clock  and  gone  to  bed.  About  five  he  thought  he 
heard  sounds,  almost  like  the  scratch  of  a  little  dog 
at  his  door.  He  sprang  up  and  flung  it  open.  The 
flash  of  his  mother's  gray-flannelette  wrapper  turned 
a  corner  of  the  hall.  She  must  have  been  crying  out 
there  and  wanting  him  to  need  her.  None  the  less 
it  had  angered  him.  These  were  men's  affairs. 

But  in  his  room  to-night  the  light  burned  placidly 
on  the  little  table  next  to  the  bed,  a  glass  of  milk 
on  a  plate  beside  it.  The  bed  was  turned  back, 
snowy  sheets  forming  a  cool  envelope  for  him  to 
slip  in  between.  The  room  lay  sedatively  in  shadow. 
A  man's  room.  Books,  uncurving  furniture,  photo 
graphs  of  his  parents  taken  on  their  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  standing  on  the  chiffonier  in  a  double 
leather  frame  that  opened  like  a  book.  Face  down 
on  the  reading  table  beside  the  glass  of  milk,  quite 
as  he  must  have  left  it  the  night  before,  except  where 
Sara  had  lifted  it  to  dust  under,  a  copy  of  Bishop's 
New  Criminal  Law,  already  a  prognosis,  as  it  were, 
of  that  branch  of  the  law  he  was  ultimately  and 
brilliantly  to  bend  to  fuller  justice. 

Finally,  toward  morning  Nicholas  slept,  and  at 
ten  o'clock  of  a  rain-swept  Sunday  forenoon  awoke, 
as  he  knew  he  must,  to  the  grip  of  a  blinding  head 
ache,  so  called  for  want  of  a  better  noun  to  interpret 
the  kind  of  agony  which,  starting  somewhere  around 
his  eyes,  could  prick  each  nerve  of  his  body  into  a 
little  flame,  as  if  countless  matches  had  been  struck. 

As  a  youngster  these  attacks  had  not  been  infre 
quent,  usually  after  a  fit  of  crying.  The  first,  in 
fact,  had  followed  the  burning  of  the  cat;  a  duet 
of  twin  spasms  then,  howled  into  Sara's  apron. 

253 


ROULETTE 

And  once  after  he  had  fished  an  exhausted  comrade 
out  of  an  ice  hole  in  Bronx  Park.  They  had  followed 
the  lead-pipe  affairs  and  the  Chinese-laundry  episode 
with  dreadful  inevitability.  But  it  had  been  five 
years  since  the  last — the  night  his  mother  had  fainted 
with  terror  at  what  she  had  found  concealed  in  the 
toes  of  his  gymnasium  shoes. 

Incredible  that  into  his  manhood  should  come  the 
waving  specter  of  those  early  passions. 

At  eleven  o'clock,  after  she  heard  him  up  and 
moving  about,  his  mother  carried  him  his  kiss  and 
his  coffee,  steaming  black,  the  way  he  liked  it. 
She  had  wanted  to  bring  him  an  egg — in  fact,  had 
prepared  one,  to  just  his  liking  of  two  minutes  and 
thirty  seconds — but  had  thought  better  of  it,  and 
wisely,  because  he  drank  the  coffee  at  a  quick  gulp 
and  set  down  the  cup  with  his  mouth  wry  and  his 
eyes  squeezed  tight.  From  the  taste  of  it  he  remem 
bered  horridly  the  litter  of  tall  glasses  beside  the 
gilt  clock. 

With  all  her  senses  taut  not  to  fuss  around  him 
with  little  jerks  and  pullings,  Sara  jerked  and  pulled. 
Too  well  she  knew  that  furrow  between  his  eyes  and 
wanted  unspeakably  to  tuck  him  back  into  bed, 
lower  the  shades,  and  prepare  him  a  vile  mixture 
good  for  exactly  everything  that  did  not  ail  him. 
But  Sara  could  be  wise  even  with  her  son.  So 
instead  she  flung  up  the  shade,  letting  him  wince 
at  the  clatter,  dragged  off  the  bedclothes  into  a 
tremendous  heap  on  the  chair,  beat  up  the  pillows, 
and  turned  the  mattress  with  a  single-handed  flop. 

"The  Sunday-morning  papers  are  in  the  dining 
room,  son." 

254 


ROULETTE 

"Uhm!" 

He  was  standing  in  his  dressing  gown  at  the  rain- 
lashed  window,  strumming.  Lean,  long,  and,  to 
Sara,  godlike,  with  the  thick  shock  of  his  straight 
hair,  still  wet  from  the  shower. 

"Mrs.  Berkowitz  telephoned  already  this  morning 
with  such  a  grand  compliment  for  you,  son.  Her 
brother-in-law,  Judge  Rosen,  says  you're  the  brains 
of  your  firm  even  if  you  are  only  the  junior  partner 
yet,  and  your  way  looks  straight  ahead  for  big 
things." 

"Uhm!  Who's  talking  out  there  so  incessantly, 
mother?" 

"That's  your  uncle  Aaron.  He  came  over  for 
Sunday-morning  breakfast  with  your  father.  You 
should  see  the  way  he  tracked  up  my  hall  with  his 
wet  shoes.  I'm  sending  him  right  back  home  with 
your  father.  They  should  clutter  up  your  aunt 
Gussie's  house  with  their  pinochle  and  ashes.  I 
had  'em  last  Sunday.  She  don't  need  to  let  herself 
off  so  easy  every  week.  It's  enough  if  I  ask  them 
all  over  here  for  supper  to-night.  Not?" 

"Don't  count  on  me,  dear.  I  won't  be  home  for 
supper. ' ' 

There  was  a  tom-tom  to  the  silence  against  her 
beating  ear  drums. 

"All  right,  son,"  she  said,  pulling  her  lips  until 
they  smiled  at  him,  "with  Leo  and  Irma  that  '11  only 
make  six  of  us,  then." 

He  kissed  her,  but  so  tiredly  that  again  it  was 
almost  her  irresistible  woman's  impulse  to  drag 
down  that  fiercely  black  head  to  the  beating  width 
of  her  bosom  and  plead  from  him  drop  by  drop 

255 


ROULETTE 

some  of  the  bitter  welling  of  pain  she  could  see  in  his 
eyes. 

''Nicky,"  she  started  to  cry,  and  then,  at  his 
straightening  back  from  her,  "come  out  in  the 
dining  room  after  I  pack  off  the  men.  I  got  my  work 
to  do.  That  nix  of  a  house  girl  left  last  night.  Such 
sass,  too!  I'm  better  off  doing  my  work  alone." 

Sara,  poor  dear,  could  not  keep  a  servant,  and, 
except  for  the  instigation  of  her  husband  and  son, 
preferred  not  to.  Cooks  rebelled  at  the  exactitude  of 
her  household  and  her  disputative  reign  of  the 
kitchen. 

"Ill  be  out  presently,  mother,"  he  said,  and  flung 
himself  down  in  the  leather  Morris  chair,  lighting  his 
pipe  and  ostensibly  settling  down  to  the  open-faced 
volume  of  Criminal  Law. 

Sara  straightened  a  straight  chair.  She  knew, 
almost  as  horridly  as  if  she  had  looked  in  on  it,  the 
mucky  thing  that  was  happening;  the  intuitive 
sixth  sense  of  her  hovered  over  him  with  great  wings 
that  wanted  to  spread.  Josie  Drew  was  no  surmise 
with  her.  The  blond  head  and  the  red  hat  were 
tatooed  in  pain  on  her  heart  and  she  trembled  in  a 
bath  of  fear,  and,  trembling,  smiled  and  went  out. 

Sitting  there  while  the  morning  ticked  on,  head 
thrown  back,  eyes  closed,  and  all  the  little  darting 
nerves  at  him,  the  dawn  of  Nicholas  Turkletaub's 
repugnance  was  all  for  self.  The  unfrowsy  room, 
and  himself  fresh  from  his  own  fresh  sheets.  His 
mother's  eyes  with  that  clean-sky  quality  in  them. 
The  affectionate  wrangling  of  those  two  decent 
voices  from  the  dining  room.  Books!  His  books, 
that  he  loved.  His  tastiest  dream  of  mother,  with 

256 


ROULETTE 

immensity  and  grandeur  in  her  eyes,  listening  from 
a  privileged  first-row  bench  to  the  supreme  quality 
of  his  mercy.  Judge — Turkletaub ! 

But  tastily,  too,  and  undeniably  against  his  lips, 
throughout  these  conjurings,  lay  the  last  crushy 
kiss  of  Josie  Drew.  That  swany  arch  to  her 
neck  as  he  bent  it  back.  He  had  kissed  her  there. 
Countlessly. 

He  tried  to  dwell  on  his  aversions  for  her.  She 
had  once  used  an  expletive  in  his  presence  that  had 
sickened  him,  and,  noting  its  effect,  she  had  not 
reiterated.  The  unfastidious  brunette  roots  to  her 
light  hair.  That  sink  with  the  grease-rimmed  old 
beer !  But  then :  her  eyes  where  the  brows  slid  down 
to  make  them  heavy -lidded.  That  bit  of  blue  vein 
in  the  crotch  of  her  elbow.  That  swany  arch. 

Back  somewhere,  as  the  tidy  morning  wore  in,  the 
tranced,  the  maddening  repetition  began  to  tick 
itself  through : 

"Six  o'clock.     Six  o'clock." 

He  rushed  out  into  the  hallway  and  across  to  the 
parlor  pinkly  lit  with  velours,  even  through  the  rainy 
day,  and  so  inflexibly  calm.  Sara  might  have 
measured  the  distance  between  the  chairs,  so  regi 
mental  they  stood.  The  pink-velour  curlicue 
divan  with  the  two  pink,  gold-tasseled  cushions, 
carelessly  exact.  The  onyx-topped  table  with  the 
pink-velour  drape,  also  gold-tasseled.  The  pair  of 
equidistant  and  immaculate  china  cuspidors,  rose- 
wreathed.  The  smell  of  Sunday. 

"Nicky,  that  you?" 

It  was  his  mother,  from  the  dining  room. 

"Yes,  mother,"  and  sauntered  in. 
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ROULETTE 

There  were  two  women  sitting  at  the  round  table, 
shelling  nuts.  One  of  them  his  mother,  the  other 
Miss  Ada  Berkowitz,  who  jumped  up,  spilling  hulls. 

Nicholas,  in  the  velveteen  dressing  gown  with  the 
collar  turned  up,  started  to  back  out,  Mrs.  Turkle- 
taub  spoiling  that. 

"You  can  come  in,  Nicky.  Ada  11  excuse  you.  I 
guess  she's  seen  a  man  in  his  dressing  gown  before ;  the 
magazine  advertisements  are  full  with  them  in  worse 
and  in  less.  And  on  Sunday  with  a  headache  from  all 
week  working  so  hard,  a  girl  can  forgive.  He  shouldn't 
think  with  his  head  so  much,  I  always  tell  him,  Ada." 

"I  didn't  know  he  was  here,"  said  Miss  Berk 
owitz,  already  thinking  in  terms  of  what  she  might 
have  worn. 

1 '  I  telephoned  over  for  Ada,  Nicky.  They  got  an 
automobile  and  she  don't  need  to  get  her  feet  wet 
to  come  over  to  a  lonesome  old  woman  on  a  rainy 
Sunday,  to  spend  the  day  and  learn  me  how  to  make 
those  delicious  stuffed  dates  like  she  fixed  for  her 
mother's  card  party  last  week.  Draw  up  a  chair, 
Nicky,  and  help." 

She  was  casual,  she  was  matter-of-fact,  she  was 
bent  on  the  business  of  nut  cracking.  They  crashed 
softly,  never  so  much  as  bruised  by  her  carefully 
even  pressure. 

"Thanks,"  said  Nicholas,  and  sat  down,  not  caring 
to,  but  with  good  enough  grace.  He  wanted  his 
coat,  somehow,  and  fell  to  strumming  the  table  top. 

"Don't,  Nicky;   you  make  me  nervous." 

"Here,"  said  Miss  Berkowitz,  and  gave  him  a 
cracker  and  a  handful  of  nuts.  The  little  crashings 
resumed. 


ROULETTE 

Ada  had  very  fair  skin  against  dark  hair,  slightly 
too  inclined  to  curl.  There  was  quite  a  creamy 
depth  to  her — a  wee  pinch  could  raise  a  bruise. 
The  kind  of  whiteness  hers  that  challenged  the  string 
of  tiny  Oriental  pearls  she  wore  at  her  throat.  Her 
healthily  pink  cheeks  and  her  little  round  bosom 
were  plump,  and  across  the  back  of  each  of  her  hands 
were  four  dimples  that  flashed  in  and  out  as  she  bore 
down  on  the  cracker.  She  was  as  clear  as  a  mountain 
stream. 

"A  trifle  too  plumpy,"  he  thought,  but  just  the 
same  wished  he  had  wet  his  military  brushes. 

"Ada  has  just  been  telling  me,  Nicky,  about  her 
ambition  to  be  an  interior  decorator  for  the  insides 
of  houses.  I  think  it  is  grand  the  way  some  girls 
that  are  used  to  the  best  of  everything  prepare 
themselves  for,  God  forbid,  they  should  ever  have 
to  make  their  own  livings.  I  give  them  credit  for 
it.  Tell  Nicky,  Ada,  about  the  drawing  you  did  last 
week  that  your  teacher  showed  to  the  class." 

"Oh,"  said  Ada,  blushing  softly,  "Mr.  Turkle- 
taub  isn't  interested  in  that." 

"Yes,  I  am,"  said  Nicholas,  politely,  eating  one  of 
the  meats. 

"You  mean  the  Tudor  dining  room — " 

1 '  No,  no !  You  know,  the  blue-and-white  one  you 
said  you  liked  best  of  all." 

"It  was  a  nursery,"  began  Ada,  softly.  "Just  one 
of  those  blue-and-white  darlingnesses  for  some 
body's  little  darling." 

"For  somebody's  little  darling,"  repeated  Mrs. 
Turkletaub,  silently.  She  had  the  habit,  when 
moved,  of  mouthing  people's  words  after  therri, 

259 


^ROULETTE 

"My  idea  was —  Oh,  it's  so  silly  to  be  telling  it 
again,  Mrs.  Turkletaub!" 

"Silly!  I  think  it's  grand  that  a  girl  brought  up 
to  the  best  should  want  to  make  something  of  her 
self.  Don't  you,  Nick?" 

"H-m-m!" 

"Well,  my  little  idea  was  white  walls  with  little 
Delft-blue  borders  of  waddling  duckies;  white 
dotted  Swiss  curtains  in  the  brace  of  sunny  southern- 
exposure  windows,  with  little  Delft-blue  borders  of 
more  waddling  duckies;  and  dear  little  nursery 
rhymes  painted  in  blue  on  the  headboard  to  keep 
baby's  dreams  sweet." 

" — baby's  dreams  sweet!  I  ask  you,  is  that 
cute,  Nick?  Baby's  dreams  she  even  interior 
decorates." 

1  *  My — instructor  liked  that  idea,  too.  He  gave  me 
'A'  on  the  drawing." 

"He  should  have  given  you  the  whole  alpha 
bet.  And  tell  him  about  the  chairs,  Ada.  Such 
originality." 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Turkletaub,  that  was  just  a — a  little — 
idea—" 

"The  modesty  of  her!  Believe  me,  if  it  was  mine, 
I'd  call  it  a  big  one.  Tell  him/' 

"Mummie  and  daddie  chairs  I  call  them." 

Sara  (mouthing):   "Mummie  and  daddie — " 

"Two  white-enamel  chairs  to  stand  on  either  side 
of  the  crib  so  when  mummie  and  daddie  run  up  in 
their  evening  clothes  to  kiss  baby  good  night — 
Oh,  I  just  mean  two  pretty  white  chairs,  one  for 
mummie  and  one  for  daddie."  Little  crash. 

"I  ask  you,  Nicky,  is  that  poetical?    'So  when 
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ROULETTE 

mummie  and  daddie  run  up  to  kiss  baby  good  night.' 
I  remember  once  in  Russia,  Nicky,  all  the  evening 
clothes  we  had  was  our  nightgowns,  but  when  you 
and  your  little  twin  brother  were  two  and  a  half 
years  old,  one  night  I — " 

"Mrs.  Turkletaub,  did  you  have  twins?" 

"Did  I  have  twins,  Nicky,  she  asks  me.  She 
didn't  know  you  were  twins.  A  red  one  I  had,  as 
red  as  my  black  one  is  black.  You  see  my  Nicky 
how  black  and  mad-looking  he  is  even  when  he's 
glad;  well,  just  so — " 

"Now,  mother!" 

"Just  so  beautiful  and  fierce  and  red  was  my 
other  beautiful  baby.  You  didn't  know,  Ada,  that 
a  piece  of  my  heart,  the  red  of  my  blood,  I  left 
lying  out  there.  Nicky — she  didn't  know — " 

She  could  be  so  blanched  and  so  stricken  when 
the  saga  of  her  motherhood  came  out  in  her  eyes,  the 
pallor  of  her  face  jutting  out  her  features  like  lonely 
landmarks  on  waste  land,  that  her  husband  and  her 
son  had  learned  how  to  dread  for  her  and  spare 
her. 

"Now,  mother!"  said  Nicholas,  and  rose  to  stand 
behind  her  chair,  holding  her  poor,  quavering 
chin  in  the  cup  of  his  hand.  "Come,  one  rainy 
Sunday  is  enough.  Let's  not  have  an  indoor  as  well 
as  an  outdoor  storm.  Come  along.  Didn't  I  hear 
Miss  Ada  play  the  piano  one  evening  over  at  Leo's? 
Up-see-la !  Who  said  you  weren't  my  favorite  danc 
ing  partner?"  and  waltzed  her,  half  dragging  back, 
toward  the  parlor.  "Come,  some  music!" 

There  were  the  usual  demurrings  from  Ada,  rather 
prettily  pink,  and  Mrs.  Turkletaub,  with  the  threat 

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ROULETTE 

of  sobs  swallowed,  opening  the  upright  piano  to  dust 
the  dustless  keyboard  with  her  apron,  and  Nicholas, 
his  sagging  pipe  quickly  supplied  with  one  of  the 
rose-twined  cuspidors  for  ash  receiver,  hunched 
down  in  the  pink-velour  armchair  of  enormous 
upholstered  hips. 

The  " Turkish  Patrol"  was  what  Ada  played,  and 
then,  "Who  Is  Sylvia?"  and  sang  it,  as  frailly  as  a 
bird. 

At  one  o'clock  there  was  dinner,  that  immemorial 
Sunday  meal  of  roast  chicken  with  its  supplicating 
legs  up  off  the  platter;  dressing  to  be  gouged  out; 
sweet  potatoes  in  amber  icing;  a  master  stroke  of 
Mrs.  Turkletaub's  called  "matzos  klose,"  balls  of 
unleavened  bread,  sizzling,  even  as  she  served  them, 
in  a  hot  butter  bath  and  light-brown  onions;  a 
stuffed  goose  neck,  bursting  of  flavor;  cheese  pie 
twice  the  depth  of  the  fork  that  cut  in;  coffee  in 
large  cups.  More  cracking  of  nuts,  interspersed 
with  raisins.  Ada,  cunningly  enveloped  in  a  much- 
too-large  apron,  helping  Mrs.  Turkletaub  to  clear  it 
all  away. 

Smoking  there  in  his  chair  beside  the  dining- 
room  window,  rain  the  unrelenting  threnody  of  the 
day,  Nicholas,  fed,  closed  his  eyes  to  the  rhythm  of 
their  comings  and  goings  through  the  swinging  door 
that  led  to  the  kitchen.  Comings — and — goings — 
his  mother  who  rustled  so  cleanly  of  starch — Ada — 
clear — yes,  that  was  it — clear  as  a  mountain  stream. 
Their  small  laughters — comings — goings — 

It  was  almost  dusk  when  he  awoke,  the  pink- 
shaded  piano  lamp  already  lighted  in  the  parlor 
beyond,  the  window  shade  at  his  side  drawn  and  an 

262 


ROULETTE 

Afghan  across  his  knees.  It  was  snug  there  in  the 
rosied  dusk.  The  women  were  in  the  kitchen  yet, 
or  was  it  again?  Again,  he  supposed,  looking  at  his 
watch.  He  had  slept  three  hours.  Presently  he 
rose  and  sauntered  out.  There  was  coffee  fragrance 
on  the  air  of  the  large  white  kitchen,  his  mother 
hunched  to  the  attitude  of  wielding  a  can  opener, 
and  at  the  snowy  oilclothed  table,  Ada,  slicing 
creamy  slabs  off  the  end  of  a  cube  of  Swiss  cheese. 

"Sleepyhead,"  she  greeted,  holding  up  a  sliver  for 
him  to  nibble. 

And  his  mother:  "That  was  a  good  rest  for  you, 
son  ?  You  feel  better  ? ' ' 

"Immense,"  he  said,  hunching  his  shoulders  and 
stretching  his  hands  down  into  his  pockets  in  a 
yawny  well-being. 

"I  wish,  then,  you  would  put  another  leaf  in  the 
table  for  me.  There's  four  besides  your  father 
coming  over  from  Aunt  Gussie's.  I  just  wish  you 
would  look  at  Ada.  For  a  girl  that  don't  have  to 
turn  her  hand  at  home,  with  two  servants,  and  a 
laundress  every  other  week,  just  look  how  handy  she 
is  with  everything  she  touches." 

The  litter  of  Sunday-night  supper,  awaiting  its 
transfer  to  the  dining-room  table,  lay  spread  in  the 
faithful  geometry  of  the  cold,  hebdomadal  repast. 
A  platter  of  ruddy  sliced  tongue;  one  of  noonday 
remnants  of  cold  chicken;  ovals  of  liverwurst;  a 
mound  of  potato  salad  crisscrossed  with  strips  of 
pimento;  a  china  basket  of  the  stuffed  dates,  all 
kissed  with  sugar ;  half  of  an  enormously  thick  cheese 
cake;  two  uncovered  apple  pies;  a  stack  of  deli 
cious  raisin-stuffed  curlicues,  known  as  "schneken," 

263 


ROULETTE 

pickles  with  a  fern  of  dill  across  them  (Ada's  touch, 
the  dill);  a  dish  of  stuffed  eggs  with  a  toothpick 
stuck  in  each  half  (also  Ada's  touch,  the  tooth 
picks). 

She  moved  rather  pussily,  he  thought,  sometimes 
her  fair  cheeks  quivering  slightly  to  the  vibration  of 
her  walk,  as  if  they  had  jelled.  And,  too,  there  was 
something  rather  snug  and  plump  in  the  way  her 
little  hands  with  the  eight  dimples  moved  about 
things,  laying  the  slabs  of  Swiss  cheese,  unstacking 
cups. 

"No,  only  seven  cups,  Ada.  Nicky — ain't  going 
to  be  home  to  supper." 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "excuse  me!  I — I — thought — 
silly — "  and  looked  up  at  him  to  deny  that  it 
mattered. 

"Isn't  that  what  you  said  this  morning,  Nicky?" 
Poor  Sara,  she  almost  failed  herself  then  because  her 
voice  ended  in  quite  a  dry  click  in  her  throat. 

He  stood  watching  the  resumed  unstacking  of  the 
cups,  each  with  its  crisp  little  grate  against  its 
neighbor. 

"One,"  said  Ada,  "two-three-four-five-six — 
seven!" 

He  looked  very  long  and  lean  and  his  darkly 
nervous  self,  except  that  he  dilly-dallied  on  his 
heels  like  a  much-too-tall  boy  not  wanting  to  look 
foolish. 

"If  Miss  Ada  will  provide  another  cup  and  saucer, 
I  think  I'll  stay  home." 

"As  you  will,"  said  Sara,  disappearing  into  the 
dining  room  with  the  mound  of  salad  and  the  basket 
of  sugar-kissed  dates. 

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ROULETTE 

She  put  them  down  rather  hastily  when  she  got 
there,  because,  sillily  enough,  she  thought,  for  the 
merest  instant,  she  was  going  to  faint. 


The  week  that  Judge  Turkletaub  tried  his  first 
case  in  Court  of  General  Sessions — a  murder  case, 
toward  which  his  criminal-law  predilection  seemed 
so  inevitably  to  lead  him,  his  third  child,  a  little 
daughter  with  lovely  creamy  skin  against  slightly 
too  curly  hair,  was  lying,  just  two  days  old,  in  a 
blue-and-white  nursery  with  an  absurd  border  of 
blue  ducks  waddling  across  the  wallpaper. 

Ada,  therefore,  was  not  present  at  this  inaugural 
occasion  of  his  first  trial.  But  each  of  the  two  weeks 
of  its  duration,  in  a  first-row  bench  of  the  privileged, 
so  that  her  gaze  was  almost  on  a  dotted  line  with 
her  son's,  sat  Sara  Turkletaub,  her  hands  crossed 
over  her  waistline,  her  bosom  filling  and  waning 
and  the  little  jet  folderols  on  her  bonnet  blinking, 
Tears  had  their  way  with  her,  prideful,  joyful  at 
her  son's  new  estate,  sometimes  bitterly  salt  at 
the  life  in  the  naked  his  eyes  must  look  upon. 

Once,  during  the  recital  of  the  defendant,  Sara 
almost  seemed  to  bleed  her  tears,  so  poignantly 
terrible  they  came,  scorching  her  eyes  of  a  pain  too 
exquisite  to  be  analyzed,  yet  too  excruciating  to  be 
endured. 

in 

Venture  back,  will  you,  to  the  ice  and  red  of  that 
Russian  dawn  when  on  the  snow  the  footsteps  that 

265 


ROULETTE 

led  toward  the  horizon  were  the  color  of  blood,  and 
one  woman,  who  could  not  keep  her  eyes  ahead, 
moaned  as  she  fled,  prayed,  and  even  screamed  to 
return  to  her  dead  in  the  bullet-riddled  horse 
trough. 

Toward  the  noon  of  that  day,  a  gray  one  that 
smelled  charred,  a  fugitive  group  from  a  distant 
village  that  was  still  burning  faltered,  as  it  too  fled 
toward  the  horizon,  in  the  blackened  village  of 
Vodna,  because  a  litter  had  to  be  fashioned  for  an 
old  man  whose  feet  were  frozen,  and  a  mother,  whose 
baby  had  perished  at  her  breast,  would  bury  her 
dead. 

Huddled  beside  the  horse  trough,  over  a  poor  fire 
she  had  kindled  of  charred  wood,  Hanscha,  the  mid 
wife  (Hanscha,  the  drunk,  they  called  her,  fas 
cinatedly,  in  the  Pale  of  generations  of  sober  women), 
spied  Mosher's  flung  coat  and  reached  for  it  eagerly, 
with  an  eye  to  tearing  it  into  strips  to  wrap  her 
tortured  feet. 

A  child  stirred  as  she  snatched  it,  wailing  lightly, 
and  the  instinct  of  her  calling,  the  predominant 
motive,  Hanscha  with  her  fumy  breath  warmed  it 
closer  to  life  and  trod  the  one  hundred  and  eight 
miles  to  the  port  with  it  strapped  to  her  back  like 
a  pack. 

Thus  it  was  that  Schmulka,  the  red  twin,  came  to 
America  and  for  the  first  fourteen  years  of  his  life 
slept  on  a  sour  pallet  in  a  sour  tenement  he  shared 
with  Hanscha,  who  with  filthy  hands  brought 
children  into  the  filthy  slums. 

Jason,  she  called  him,  because  that  was  the  name 
of  the  ship  that  carried  them  over.  A  rolling  tub 

266 


ROULETTE 

that  had  been  horrible  with  the  cries  of  cattle  and 
seasickness. 

At  fourteen  he  was  fierce  and  rebellious  and  down 
on  the  Juvenile  Court  records  for  truancy,  petty 
trafficking  in  burned-out  opium,  vandalism,  and 
gang  vagrancy. 

In  Hanscha's  sober  hours  he  was  her  despair,  and 
she  could  be  horrible  in  her  anger,  once  the  court 
reprimanding  her  and  threatening  to  take  Jason 
from  her  because  of  welts  found  on  his  back. 

It  was  in  her  cups  that  she  was  proud  of  him,  and 
so  it  behooved  Jason  to  drink  her  down  to  her  pallet, 
which  he  could,  easily. 

He  was  handsome.  His  red  hair  had  darkened  to 
the  same  bronze  of  the  samovar  and  he  was  straight 
as  the  drop  of  an  apple  from  the  branch.  He  was 
reckless.  Could  turn  a  pretty  penny  easily,  even 
dangerously,  and  spend  it  with  a  flip  for  a  pushcart 
bauble. 

Once  he  brought  home  a  plaster-of-Paris  Venus — 
the  Melos  one  with  the  beautiful  arch  to  her  torso 
of  a  bow  that  instant  after  the  arrow  has  flown. 
Hanscha  cuffed  him  for  the  expenditure,  but  secretly 
her  old  heart,  which  since  childhood  had  subjected  her 
to  strange,  rather  epileptical,  sinking  spells,  and  had 
induced  the  drinking,  warmed  her  with  pride  in  his 
choice. 

Hanscha,  with  her  veiny  nose  and  the  dread 
ful  single  hair  growing  out  of  a  mole  on  her  chin, 
was  not  without  her  erudition.  She  had  read  for  the 
midwifery,  and  back  in  the  old  days  could  recite 
the  bones  in  the  body. 

She  let  the  boy  read  nights,  sometimes  even  to 
18  267 


ROULETTE 

dropping  another  coin  into  the  gas  meter.  Some  of 
the  books  were  the  lewd  penny  ones  of  the  Bowery 
bookstands,  old  medical  treatises,  too,  purchased 
three  for  a  quarter  and  none  too  nice  reading  for  the 
growing  boy.  But  there  he  had  also  found  a  Les 
Mistrables  and  The  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine, 
which  last,  if  he  had  known  it,  was  a  rare  edition, 
but  destined  for  the  ash  pit. 

Once  he  read  Hanscha  a  bit  of  poetry  out  of  a 
furiously  stained  old  volume  of  verse,  so  fragrantly 
beautiful,  to  him,  this  bit,  that  it  wound  around  him 
like  incense,  the  perfume  of  it  going  deeply  and 
stinging  his  eyes  to  tears: 

Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting! 

The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 

Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 

And  cometh  from  afar. 

Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 

And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 

But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God,  who  is  our  home: 

Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy. 

Shades  of  the  prison  house  begin  to  close 

Upon  the  growing  boy, 

But  he  beholds  the  light,  and  whence  it  flows 

He  sees  it  in  his  joy; 

The  youth  who  daily  farther,  from  the  East 

Must  travel,  still  is  Nature's  priest, 

And  by  the  vision  splendid 

Is  on  his  way  attended; 

At  length  the  man  perceives  it  die  away, 

And  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day. 

But  Hanscha  was  drunk  and  threw  some  coffee- 
sopped  bread  at  him,  and  so  his  foray  into  poetry 
ended  in  the  slops  of  disgust. 

268 


ROULETTE 

A  Miss  Manners,  a  society  social  worker  who 
taught  poverty  sweet  forbearance  every  Tuesday 
from  four  until  six,  wore  a  forty-eight-diamond  bar 
pin  on  her  under  bodice  (on  Tuesday  from  four  until 
six),  and  whose  gray-suede  slippers  were  ever  so 
slightly  blackened  from  the  tripping  trip  from  front 
door  to  motor  and  back,  took  him  up,  as  the  saying 
is,  and  for  two  weeks  Jason  disported  himself  on  the 
shorn  lawns  of  the  Manners  summer  place  at  Great 
Neck,  where  the  surf  creamed  at  the  edge  of  the 
terrace  and  the  smell  of  the  sea  set  something 
beating  against  his  spirit  as  if  it  had  a  thousand 
imprisoned  wings. 

There  he  developed  quite  a  flair  for  the  law  books 
in  Judge  Manners's  laddered  library.  Miss  Manners 
found  him  there,  reading,  on  stomach  and  elbows, 
his  heels  waving  in  the  air. 

Judge  Manners  talked  with  him  and  discovered 
a  legal  turn  of  mind,  and  there  followed  some  veranda 
talk  of  educating  and  removing  him  from  his  environ 
ment.  But  that  very  afternoon  Jason  did  a  horrid 
thing.  It  was  no  more  than  he  had  seen  about  him 
all  his  life.  Not  as  much.  He  kissed  the  little  pig- 
tailed  daughter  of  the  laundress  and  pursued  her  as 
she  ran  shrieking  to  her  mother's  apron.  That  was 
all,  but  his  defiant  head  and  the  laundress's  chance 
knowledge  of  his  Juvenile  Court  record  did  for  him. 

At  six  o'clock  that  evening,  with  a  five-dollar  bill 
of  which  he  made  a  spitball  for  the  judge's  departing 
figure  down  the  station  platform,  he  was  shipped 
back  to  Hanscha.  Secretly  he  was  relieved.  Life 
was  easier  in  the  tenement  under  the  shadow  of 
Brooklyn  Bridge.  The  piece  of  its  arch  which  he 

269 


ROULETTE 

could  see  from  his  window  was  even  beautiful,  a 
curve  of  a  stone  into  some  beyond. 

That  night  he  fitted  down  into  the  mold  his  body 
had  worn  on  the  pallet,  sighing  out  satisfaction. 

Environment  had  won  him  back. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  one  of  those  red  star- 
spangled  passions  of  rebellion  against  his  fetid  days, 
he  blindly  cut  Hanscha  with  the  edge  of  a  book 
which  struck  against  her  brow  as  he  hurled  it.  She 
had  been  drunk  and  had  asked  of  him,  at  sixteen, 
because  of  the  handsomeness  that  women  would 
easily  love  in  him,  to  cadet  the  neighborhood  of 
Grand  Street,  using  her  tenement  as  his  refuge  of 
vice  and  herself  as  sharer  of  spoils. 

The  corner  of  the  book  cut  deeply  and  pride  in 
her  terror  of  him  came  out  redly  in  her  bloodshot 
eyes. 

In  the  short  half  term  of  his  high-school  training 
he  had  already  forged  ahead  of  his  class  when  he 
attained  the  maturity  of  working  papers.  He  was 
plunging  eagerly — brilliantly,  in  fact — into  a  rapid 
translation  of  the  Iliad,  fired  from  the  very  first 
line  by  the  epic  of  the  hexametered  anger  of  Achilles, 
and  stubbornly  he  held  out  against  the  working 
papers. 

But  to  Hanscha  they  came  with  the  inevitability 
of  a  summons  rather  than  an  alternative,  and  so  for 
a  year  or  two  he  brought  home  rather  precocious 
wages  from  his  speed  in  a  canning  factory.  Then 
he  stoked  his  way  to  Sydney  and  back,  returning 
fiery  with  new  and  terrible  oaths. 

One  night  Hanscha  died.  He  found  her  crumpled 
up  in  the  huddle  of  her  skirts  as  if  she  had  dropped 

270 


ROULETTE 

in  her  tracks,  which  she  had,  in  one  of  the  epileptic 
heart  strictures. 

It  was  hardly  a  grief  to  him.  He  had  seen  red 
with  passion  at  her  atrociousness  too  often,  and, 
somehow,  everything  that  she  stood  for  had  been 
part  of  the  ache  in  him. 

Yet  it  is  doubtful  if,  released  of  her,  he  found 
better  pasture.  Bigger  pastures,  it  is  true,  in  what 
might  be  called  an  upper  stratum  of  the  lower  East 
Side,  although  at  no  time  was  he  ever  to  become 
party  to  any  of  its  underground  system  of  crime. 

Inevitably,  the  challenge  of  his  personality  cleared 
the  way  for  him.  At  nineteen  he  had  won  and 
lost  the  small  fortune  of  thirty-three  hundred  dollars 
at  a  third-class  gambling  resort  where  he  came  in 
time  to  be  croupier. 

He  dressed  flashily,  wore  soft  collars,  was  con 
stantly  swapping  sporty  scarf  pins  for  sportier  ones, 
and  was  inevitably  the  center,  seldom  part,  of  a 
group. 

Then  one  evening  at  Cooper  Union,  which  stands 
at  the  head  of  the  Bowery,  he  enrolled  for  an  evening 
course  in  law,  but  never  entered  the  place  again. 

Because  the  next  night,  in  a  Fourteenth  Street 
cabaret  with  adjacent  gambling  rooms,  he  met  one 
who  called  herself  Winnie  Ross,  the  beginning  of  a 
heart-sickening  end. 

There  is  so  little  about  her  to  relate.  She  was  the 
color  of  cloyed  honey  when  the  sugar  granules  begin 
to  show  through.  Pale,  pimply  in  a  fashion  the  pow 
der  could  cover  up,  the  sag  of  her  facial  muscles 
showed  plainly  through,  as  if  weary  of  doling  out 
to  the  years  their  hush  money,  and  she  was  quite 

271 


ROULETTE 

obviously  down  at  the  heels.  Literally  so,  because 
when  she  took  them  off,  her  shoes  lopped  to  the  sides 
and  could  not  stand  for  tipsiness. 

She  was  Jason's  first  woman.  She  exhaled  a  per 
fume,  cheap,  tickling,  chewed  some  advertised  tab 
lets  that  scented  her  kisses,  and  her  throat,  when 
she  threw  up  her  head,  had  an  arch  and  flex  to  it 
that  were  mysteriously  graceful. 

Life  had  been  swift  and  sheer  with  Winnie.  She 
was  very  tired  and,  paradoxically  enough,  it  gave 
her  one  of  her  last  remaining  charms.  Her  eyelids 
were  freighted  with  weariness,  were  waxy  white 
of  it,  and  they  could  flutter  to  her  cheeks,  like  white 
butterflies  against  white,  and  lay  shadows  there  that 
maddened  Jason. 

She  called  him  Red,  although  all  that  remained 
now  were  the  lights  through  his  browning  hair,  almost 
like  the  flashings  of  a. lantern  down  a  railroad  track. 

She  pronounced  it  with  a  slight  trilling  of  the  R, 
and  if  it  was  left  in  her  of  half  a  hundred  loves  to 
stir  on  this  swift  descent  of  her  life  line,  she  did 
over  Jason.  Partly  because  he  was  his  winged- 
Hermes  self,  and  partly  because — because — it  was 
difficult  for  her  rather  fagged  brain  to  rummage 
back. 

Thus  the  rest  may  be  told: 

Entering  her  rooms  one  morning,  a  pair  of  furi 
ously  garish  ones  over  a  musical-instrument  store  on 
the  Bowery,  he  threw  himself  full  length  on  the  red- 
cotton  divan,  arms  locked  under  his  always  angry- 
looking  head,  and  watching  her,  through  low  lids, 
trail  about  the  room  at  the  business  of  preparing 
him  a  surlily  demanded  cup  of  coffee.  Her  none  too 

272 


ROULETTE 

immaculate  pink  robe  trailed  a  cotton-lace  tail 
irritatingly  about  her  heels,  which  slip-slopped  as 
she  walked,  her  stockings,  without  benefit  of  support, 
twisting  about  her  ankles. 

She  was  barometer  for  his  moods,  which  were 
elemental,  and  had  learned  to  tremble  with  a  queer 
exaltation  of  fear  before  them. 

"My  Red-boy  blue  to-day,"  she  said,  stooping  as 
she  passed  and  wanting  to  kiss  him. 

He  let  his  lids  drop  and  would  have  none  of  her. 
They  were  curiously  blue,  she  thought,  as  if  of 
unutterable  fatigue,  and  then  quickly  appraised 
that  his  luck  was  still  letting  him  in  for  the  walloping 
now  of  two  weeks'  duration.  His  diamond-and-opal 
scarf  pin  was  gone,  and  the  gold  cuff  links  replaced 
with  mother-of-pearl. 

She  could  be  violently  bitter  about  money,  and 
when  the  flame  of  his  personality  was  not  there  to  be 
reckoned  with,  ten  times  a  day  she  ejected  him, 
with  a  venom  that  was  a  psychosis,  out  of  her  fur 
ther  toleration.  Not  so  far  gone  was  Winnie  but 
that  she  could  count  on  the  twist  of  her  body  and 
the  arch  of  her  throat  as  revenue  getters. 

At  first  Jason  had  been  lavish,  almost  with  a 
smack  of  some  of  the  old  days  she  had  known,  spend 
ing  with  the  easy  prodigality  of  the  gambler  in  luck. 
There  was  a  near-seal  coat  from  him  in  her  cupboard 
of  near-silks,  and  the  flimsy  wooden  walls  of  her 
rooms  had  been  freshly  papered  in  roses. 

Then  his  luck  had  turned,  and  to  top  his  sparse- 
ness  with  her  this  new  sullenness  which  she  feared 
and  yet  which  could  be  so  delicious  to  her — remi- 
niscently  delicious. 

273 


ROULETTE 

She  gave  him  coffee,  and  he  drank  it  like  medicine 
out  of  a  thick-lipped  cup  painted  in  roses. 

"My  Red-boy  blue,"  she  reiterated,  trying  to 
ingratiate  her  arms  about  his  neck.  "Red-boy 
tells  Winnie  he  won't  be  back  for  two  whole  days 
and  then  brings  her  surprise  party  very  next  day. 
Red-boy  can't  stay  away  from  Winnie. " 

"Let  go." 

"Red-boy  bring  Winnie  nothing?  Not  little 
weeny,  weeny  nothing?"  drawing  a  design  down  his 
coat  sleeve,  her  mouth  bunched. 

Suddenly  he  jerked  her  so  that  the  breath  jumped 
in  a  warm  fan  of  it  against  her  face. 

"You're  the  only  thing  I've  got  in  the  world, 
Win.  My  luck's  gone,  but  I've  got  you.  Tell  me 
I've  got  you." 

He  could  be  equally  intense  over  which  street 
car  to  take,  and  she  knew  it,  but  somehow  it  lessened 
for  her  none  of  the  lure  of  his  nervosity,  and  with  her 
mind  recoiling  from  his  pennilessness  her  body 
inclined. 

"Tell  me,  Winnie,  that  I  have  you." 

"You  know  you  have,"  she  said,  and  smiled,  with 
her  head  back  so  that  her  face  foreshortened. 

"I'm  going  far  for  you  Winnie.  Gambling  is  too 
rotten — and  too  easy.  I  want  to  build  bridges  for 
you.  Practice  law.  Corner  Wall  Street." 

This  last  clicked. 

"Once,"  she  said,  lying  back,  with  her  pupils 
enlarging  with  the  fleeting  memories  she  was  not 
always  alert  enough  to  clutch — "once — once  when 
I  lived  around  Central  Park — a  friend  of  mine — 
vice-president  he  was —  Well,  never  mind,  he  was 

274 


ROULETTE 

my  friend — it  was  nothing  for  him  to  turn  over  a 
thousand  or  two  a  week  for  me  in  Wall  Street." 

This  exaggeration  was  gross,  but  it  could  feed  the 
flame  of  his  passion  for  her  like  oil. 

"I'll  work  us  up  and  out  of  this!  I've  got  better 
stuff  in  me.  I  want  to  wind  you  in  pearls — diamonds 
— sapphires." 

"I  had  a  five-thousand-dollar  string  once--of  star 
sapphires." 

"Trust  me,  Winnie.  Help  me  by  having  confi 
dence  in  me.  I'm  glad  my  luck  is  welching.  It  will 
be  lean  at  first,  until  I  get  on  my  legs.  But  it's  not 
too  late  yet.  Win,  if  only  I  have  some  one  to  stand 
by  me.  To  believe — to  fight  with  and  for  me!  Get 
me,  girl?  Believe  in  me." 

"Sure.  Always  play  strong  with  the  cops,  Red. 
It's  the  short  cut  to  ready  money.  Ready  money, 
Red.  That's  what  gets  you  there.  Don't  ask  any 
girl  to  hang  on  if  it's  shy.  That's  where  I  spun  my 
self  dirt  many  a  time,  hanging  on  after  it  got  shy. 
Ugh!  That's  what  did  for  me — hanging  on — after 
it  got  shy." 

"No.  No.  You  don't  understand.  For  God's 
sake  try  to  get  me,  Winnie.  Fight  up  with  me. 
It  '11  be  lean,  starting,  but  I'll  finish  strong  for  you." 

"  Don't  lean  on  me.  I'm  no  wailing  wall.  What's 
it  to  me  all  your  highfaluting  talk.  You've  been  as 
slab-sided  in  the  pockets  as  a  cat  all  month.  Don't 
have  to  stand  it.  I've  got  friends — spenders — " 

There  had  been  atrocious  scenes,  based  on  his 
jealousies  of  her,  which  some  imp  in  her  would  lead 
her  to  provoke,  notwithstanding  that  even  as  she 
spoke  she  regretted,  and  reached  back  for  the  words. 

275 


ROULETTE 

"I  mean—" 

"I  know  what  you  mean,"  he  said,  quietly,  per 
mitting  her  to  lie  back  against  him  and  baring  his 
teeth  down  at  her. 

She  actually  thought  he  was  smiling. 

"I'm  not  a  dead  one  by  a  long  shot,"  she  said, 
kindling  with  what  was  probably  her  desire  to  excite 
him. 

"No?" 

"No.  I  can  still  have  the  best.  The  very  best. 
If  you  want  to  know  it,  a  political  Indian  with  a  car 
as  long  as  this  room,  not  mentioning  any  names,  is 
after  me — " 

She  still  harbored  the  unfortunate  delusion  that 
he  was  smiling. 

"You  thought  I  was  up  at  Ossining  this  morning, 
didn't  you?"  he  asked,  lazily  for  him.  He  went 
there  occasionally  to  visit  a  friend  in  the  state 
prison  who  had  once  served  him  well  in  a  gam 
bling  raid  and  was  now  doing  a  short  larceny  term 
there. 

"You  said  you  were — " 

"I  said  I  was.  Yes.  But  I  came  back  unex 
pectedly,  didn't  I?" 

"Y-yes,  Red?" 

"Look  at  me!" 

She  raised  round  and  ready -to-be-terrified  eyes. 

"Murphy  was  here  last  night!"  he  cracked  at  her, 
bang-bang-bang-bang-bang,  like  so  many  pistol 
shots. 

"Why,  Red— I—    You—" 

"Don't  lie.  Murphy  was  here  last  night!  I  saw 
him  leave  this  morning  as  I  came  in." 

276 


ROULETTE 

It  was  hazard,  pure  and  simple.  Not  even  a 
wild  one,  because  all  too  easily  he  could  kiss  down 
what  would  be  sure  to  be  only  her  half -flattered 
resentment. 

But  there  was  a  cigar  stub  on  the  table  edge,  and 
certain  of  her  adjustments  of  the  room  when  he 
entered  had  been  rather  quick.  He  could  be  like 
that  with  her,  crazily  the  slave  of  who  knows  what 
beauty  he  found  in  her;  jealous  of  even  an  unac 
countable  inflection  in  her  voice.  There  had  been 
unmentionable  frenzies  of  elemental  anger  between 
them  and  she  feared  and  exulted  in  these  strange 
poles  of  his  nature. 

"Murphy  was  here  last  night!" 

It  had  happened,  in  spite  of  a  caution  worthy 
of  a  finer  finesse  than  hers,  and  suddenly  she 
seemed  to  realize  the  quality  of  her  fear  for  him 
to  whom  she  was  everything  and  who  to  her  was 
not  all. 

"Don't,  Red,"  she  said,  all  the  bars  of  her  pre 
tense  down  and  dodging  from  his  eyes  rather  than 
from  any  move  he  made  toward  her.  "Don't,  Red. 
Don't!"  And  began  to  whimper  in  the  unbeauti- 
fulness  of  fear,  becoming  strangely  smaller  as  her 
pallor  mounted. 

He  was  as  terrible  and  as  swarthy  and  as  melo 
dramatic  as  Othello. 

"Don't,  Red,"  she  called  still  again,  and  it  was  as 
if  her  voice  came  to  him  from  across  a  bog. 

He  was  standing  with  one  knee  dug  into  the 
couch,  straining  her  head  back  against  the  wall,  his 
hand  on  her  forehead  and  the  beautiful  flexing  arch 
of  her  neck  rising  .  .  .  swanlike. 

277 


ROULETTE 

" Watch  out!"  There  was  a  raw  nail  in  the  wall 
where  a  picture  had  hung.  Murphy  had  kept  knock 
ing  it  awry  and  she  had  removed  it.  "Watch  out, 
Red!  No-o— no— " 

Through  the  star-spangled  red  he  glimpsed  her 
once  where  the  hair  swept  off  her  brow,  and  for  the 
moment,  to  his  blurred  craziness,  it  was  as  if  through 
the  red  her  brow  was  shotted  with  little  scars  and 
pock  marks  from  glass,  and  a  hot  surge  of  unac 
countable  sickness  fanned  the  enormous  silence  of 
his  rage. 

With  or  without  his  knowing  it,  that  raw  nail 
drove  slowly  home  to  the  rear  of  Winnie's  left  ear, 
upward  toward  the  cerebellum  as  he  tilted  and 
tilted,  and  the  convex  curve  of  her  neck  mounted 
like  a  bow  stretched  outward. 


There  was  little  about  Jason's  trial  to  entitle  it 
to  more  than  a  back-page  paragraph  in  the  dailies. 
He  sat  through  those  days,  that  were  crisscrossed 
with  prison  bars,  much  like  those  drowned  figures 
encountered  by  deep-sea  divers,  which,  seated  up 
right  in  death,  are  pressed  down  by  the  waters  of 
unreality. 

It  is  doubtful  if  he  spoke  a  hundred  words  during 
the  lean,  celled  weeks  of  his  waiting,  and  then  with 
a  vacuous  sort  of  apathy  and  solely  upon  advice  of 
counsel.  Even  when  he  took  the  stand,  undra- 
matically,  his  voice,  without  even  a  plating  of  zest 
for  life,  was  like  some  old  drum  with  the  parchment 
too  tired  to  vibrate. 

Women,  however,  cried  over  him  and  the  storm 

278 


ROULETTE 

in  his  eyes  and  the  curiously  downy  back  of  his 
neck  where  the  last  of  his  youth  still  marked  him. 

To  Sara,  from  her  place  in  the  first  row,  on  those 
not  infrequent  occasions  when  his  eyes  fumbled  for 
hers,  he  seemed  to  drown  in  her  gaze — back — 
somewhere — 

On  a  Friday  at  high  noon  the  jury  adjourned,  the 
judge  charging  it  with  a  solemnity  that  rang  up  to 
wise  old  rafters  and  down  into  one  woman's  thirsty 
soul  like  life-giving  waters. 

In  part  he  told  the  twelve  men  about  to  file  out, 
"If  there  has  been  anything  in  my  attitude  during 
the  recital  of  the  defendant's  story,  which  has  ap 
peared  to  you  to  be  in  the  slightest  manner  preju 
diced  one  way  or  another,  I  charge  you  to  strike 
such  mistaken  impressions  from  your  minds. 

"I  have  tried  honestly  to  wash  the  slate  of  my 
mind  clean  to  take  down  faithfully  the  aspects  of 
this  case  which  for  two  weeks  has  occupied  this  jury. 

"If  you  believe  the  defendant  guilty  of  the  heinous 
crime  in  question,  do  not  falter  in  your  use  of  the 
power  with  which  the  law  has  vested  you. 

"If,  on  the  other  hand  and  to  the  best  of  your 
judgment,  there  has  been  in  the  defendant's  life 
extenuating  circumstances,  er — a  limitation  of  en 
vironment,  home  influence,  close  not  the  avenues  of 
your  fair  judgment. 

"Did  this  man  in  the  kind  of  er — a — frenzy  he 
describes  and  to  which  witnesses  agree  he  was 
subject,  deliberately  strain  back  the  Ross  woman's 
head  until  the  nail  penetrated? 

"If  so,  remember  the  law  takes  knowledge  only 
of  self-defense. 

279 


ROULETTE 

"On  the  other  hand,  ask  of  yourselves  well,  did 
the  defendant,  in  the  frenzy  which  he  claims  had 
hold  of  him  when  he  committed  this  unusual  crime, 
know  that  the  nail  was  there? 

"Would  Winnie  Ross  have  met  her  death  if  the  nail 
had  not  been  there? 

"Gentlemen,  in  the  name  of  the  law,  solemnly 
and  with  a  fear  of  God  in  your  hearts,  I  charge  you." 

It  was  a  quick  verdict.  Three  hours  and  forty 
minutes. 

"Not  guilty." 

In  the  front  row  there,  with  the  titillating  folde- 
rols  on  her  bonnet  and  her  hand  at  her  throat  as  if 
she  would  tear  it  open  for  the  mystery  of  the  pain 
of  the  heartbeat  in  it,  Sara  Turkletaub  heard,  and, 
hearing,  swooned  into  the  pit  of  her  pain  and  her  joy. 

Her  son,  with  brackets  of  fatigue  out  about  his 
mouth,  was  standing  over  her  when  she  opened  her 
eyes,  the  look  of  crucifixion  close  to  the  front  of 
them. 

"Mother,"  he  said,  pressing  her  head  close  to  his 
robes  of  state  and  holding  a  throat-straining  quiver 
under  his  voice,  "I — I  shouldn't  have  let  you  stay. 
It  was  too — much  for  you." 

It  took  her  a  moment  for  the  mist  to  clear. 

"I —  Son — did  somebody  strike?  Hit?  Strange. 
I — I  must  have  been  hurt.  Son,  am  I  bleeding?" 
And  looked  down,  clasping  her  hand  to  the  bosom  of 
her  decent  black-silk  basque. 

"Son,  I —  It  was  a  good  verdict,  not?  I — 
couldn't  have  stood  it — if — if  it  wasn't.  I —  Some 
thing —  It  was  good,  not?" 

"Yes,  mother,  yes." 

289 


ROULETTE 

"Don't — don't  let  that  boy  get  away,  son.  I 
think — those  tempers — I  can  help — him.  You  see, 
I  know — how  to  handle —  Somehow  I — " 

"Yes,  mother,  only  now  you  must  sit  quietly — " 
"Promise  me,  son,  you  won't  let  him  get  away 
without  I  see  him?" 

"Yes,  dear,  only  please  now — a  moment — quiet — " 

You  see,  the  judge  was  very  tired,  and,  looking 

down  at  the  spot  where  her  hand  still  lay  at  her 

bosom  as  if  to  press  down  a  hurt,  the  red  of  her  same 

obsession  shook  and  shook  him. 

Somehow  it  seemed  to  him,  too,  that  her  dear 
heart  was  bleeding. 


THE    END 


BOOK  ON  THE 


OVERDUE. 


GlOct'SILU 


MAY     2    1946 

fSOKW 

^5\U» 


YB  33035 


V 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


